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HOME AUTHOBS 



HOME ARTISTS; 



AMERICAN SCENERY, ART, AND LITERATURE. 



COltPBISISG 



A SERIES OF ESSAYS BY WASHINGTON IRVING, W. C. BRYANT, FENIMORE COOPER 

.Miss COOPER, X. P. WILLIS, BAYARD TAYLOR, II. T. TUCKERMAN, 

E. L. MAGOON, DR BETHUNE, A B. STREET, MISS FIELD, ETC. 



WITH THIRTEEN ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL, 



FROM ricil RES M EfflXEXT ARTISTS, 



ENGRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK 



NEW YORK: 
L E A V I T T A N D A L L E N 

27 DEY STREET. 



■ H 



3S OS 2 

- 



CONTENTS. 



AUTHORS 

DEDICATION v 

PI BUSKER'S NOTICE vii 

SCENERY ANi> \IINH. . . . . . E. 1.. Ma 1 

VIEW NEAR RONDOUT, to 

AMERICAN AN"]) EUROPEAN SCENERY COMPARED, J. Fenimore Cooper 51 

THE -CATSKILL MOUNTAINS, .... Washington Irving 71 

A DISSOLVING VIEW, Miss Coo 79 

THE SCENERY OE PENNSYLVANIA, . . . Bayard Taylor 95 

THE HIGHLAND TERRACE, ABOVE WEST POINT NT. P. Willis L05 

WA-WA-YAN-DAH LAKE, NEW JERSEY, 113 

OVER THE MiM STTAINS, OR THE WESTERN PIONEER, H. T. Tm LIB 

WEST ROOK, NEW HAVEN Maui E. Field L37 

THE ERIE RAILROAD, ..... Bat mm. Taylor I 13 

THE CHI RCH OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS, WEST POINT, . . 151 

THE VALLEY OF THE HOUSATONIO, . . . Wm. C. Bryant LBS 

THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS, . . . Alfred B. Streei 161 

SCHROON LAKE 

ART IN THE UNITED STATES. . . . i ; w ; 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



THE BAY OF NEW-YORK, . 
CASCADE BRIDGE ERIE RAILROAD, . 

THE RONDOUT, 

CATSRTLL SCENERY, .... 

CATSKHX, l.V THE CLOVE, . 

THE JTJNIATTA, PENN. 

WA-WA-YAN-DAH LAKE 

COWETA CREEK, NORTH CAROLINA, 

WEST ROCK, NEW HAVEN, . 

THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS 

WEST POINT, 

THE HOUSATONIC VALLEY, 

ADIRONDACK SCENERY, 

SCHROON LAKE 



l'AINTEK. 

II. Beohwitu 
J. Tali 

D. HuNTDiOTON 

J. F. Kexsett 

A. B. DtJRAND 

J. Talbot 
J. F. Cropsey 

T. A. RlCHARDS 

F. E. Church 



iVF.K. PAGE 

H. BfiCKWlTH Front 

J. II.W.I'IN 



R. W. Weir 
R, GlGNOl S 
A. B. DUEAND 

T. Cole 



& V. Hint 
II. Beckwitii 

II. B» KW1IH 

II. Beckwitii 

S. V. HINT 

S. Y. IkNT 

S. V. Hu.vr 
S. V. Him 

J. Halfin 

.1. Kirs 

n. Beckwitii 



l'.i 
71 
78 

113 
115 
137 

l.-.l 
165 
161 

ll 



TO 



A. B. DURAND, 

in host of THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF THE l"!\i: HITS, 



THIS WORK, 



INTENDED AS AN INITIATOR! BUGGE6TION FOR POPl'LAKIZING SOME OF THE CHARACTERISTH 



Jlmrriniii ITnnttnrnpt nuil Smrrirnit M, 



IS. 1', V PERMISSION, 



I ! K S 1 ' K < ' T F II L L Y D E I) I C A T E D , 



i;v THE PUBLISHER. 



PUBLISHER'S NOTICE 



That American artists bave ample scope for tlie developmeirl of 
genius, in the departmenl of landscape painting, is a truism too self- 
evident to need any argumentative dissertations. A very laudable 
degree of success in the cultivation of this genius, is also evident 
in man] of our private drawing-rooms, as ■well as public exhibitions. 

Believing thai ample material thus exists Cor illustrating the 
picturesque beauties of American landscape, the publisher bas ven- 
tured to undertake this volume as an experiment, to ascertain bow 
far the taste of our people may warrant the production of bome- 
manufactured presentation-books, and how far we can successfully 
compete with those from abroad. In the higher range of orna- 
mental books of this class, such as are sought for by our liberal, 
gift-giving people, we bave heretofore depended almosl exclusively 
upon our importations from Europe. 

It is not to be pretended that this volume, even in its depart- 
ment, has reached the highest degree of excellence. The engravi 
are perhaps of too i lerate size to do anything like justice to the 

inal pictures, and they are doubtless still capable of improve- 



8 PUBLISHERS NOTICE. 

meat, although it will be conceded that the engravers have done 
their part with taste and skill. 

Whether the volume shows any progress, however, in American 
book-making, must be left to the public decision. If that tribunal 
affords the needful encouragement, this may be followed by future 
volumes of similar import, but more worthy of the artists and of 
the country. 

The publisher begs leave to return his acknowledgments to those 
who have so kindly aided him in making this experiment — particu- 
larly to Mr. Durand, the distinguished president of the Academy, 
and to Messrs. Huntington, Church, Kensett, "Weir, Talbot, Cropsey, 
and Richards, all of whom have won so much distinction as land- 
scape painters. To the gentlemen who have kindly loaned pictures 
for engraving, the publisher is under special obligation, particularly 
to Cyrus W. Field, Esq., for Mr. Church's charming picture of West 
Rock ; to General J. A. Dix, for that of Rondout, by Huntington ; 
to Mrs. Cole, for the picture of Schroon Lake, by her late husband ; 
to Mr. C. H. Rogers for Mr. Talbot's "Juniata," and to Mr. J. W. 
Whitefield for the same artist's " Cascade Bridge." 

It is superfluous to refer to the eminent writers who have zealously 
contributed to the substantial value of the volume by their able 
essays. The reader can appreciate them without note or comment. 

The publisher would merely allude to the self-evident fact, that 
this volume does not claim to represent the American landscape 
painters in any thing like proper proportion. It was only practi- 
cable to give in this such specimens as were accessible, of only a 
small proportion of those artists who would worthily adorn such a 
book. K we are permitted to proceed with another volume, a dozen 
or two more names will at once occur to the reader as quite essen- 
tial for such a purpose. 

a. p. p. 



SCENERY AND MIND. 



BY E. L. MAGOOH, A. \l. 

" my Native Land ' 
How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and liolj 
To me, who from thy lakes and mountain hills, 
Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas, 
Have drunk in all my intellectual life, 
All Bweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, 
All adoration of the *>"il in nature. 
All lovely ami all honorable things, 
Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel 
The joy ami greatness of its future lieing ? 
There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul 
Unborrowed from my country." 

Coleridgi 

(J«»D made the human soul illustrious, and designed il for exalted 
pursuits and a glorious destiny. To expand our finite faculties, and 
afford them a culture both profound and elevating, Nature is spread 
around u<, with all its stupendous proportions, and Revelation speaks to 
as of an eternal augmentation of knowledge hereafter, for weal or woe. 

1 



2 SCENERY AND MIND. 

Above, beneath, and on every side, open the avenues of infinite pro- 
gression, through which we are to advance without pause, and expand 
without limit. Here, in this dim arena of earth, an immortal essence 
throbs at our heart in harmony with the infinite and eternal. The 
day-star of thought arises on the soul, and, with our first rational 
exercise, begins an existence which may experience many vicissitudes, 
may pass through many transitions, but can never terminate. The 
soul, vivified with power to think, will outlive the universe which feeds 
its thought, and will be still practising its juvenile excursions at the 
mere outset of its opening career, while suns and systems, shorn of 
their glories, shall sink, in shattered ruins, to the caverns of eternal 
oblivion. The two great capacities, correspondent to the two great 
natural elements alluded to above, — the power of perceiving the 
beautiful and feeling the sul dime, — are at once the products and proofs 
of inherent immortality. They indicate endowments which it is bliss 
to improve, and a destiny which it will be fearful indeed to neglect. 

All sentient beings may have an eye that can see, and an ear that 
can hear ; but to be gifted with a heart that can feel, constitutes the 
chief characteristic of a living soul. Animals are created perfect, 
while mankind are made perfectible by virtue of loftier capacities. 
Instinct is compelled to pause over what it dimly perceives, but mind 
perpetually quickens its vision, as well as its speed, through the mag- 
nificent unfoldings of its unbounded progress. The senses educate the 
capabilities. Our lower nature is first susceptible to impression ; and 
from this source, at a very early period, influences arise which, when 
once stereotj ped upon the soul, are ineffaceable forever. What is the 
destiny of that little stranger, just emerged from mysterious night 
into life active and eternal ? What is to be the history of that glim- 
mering spark, struck from nothingness by the all-creating rock, and 
filled with a fulness of being that will shine when the stars are 



s c r \ i i: v a \ i> mind. 3 

extinct? Soon its faculties will untold to external influences. A> ve1 
its germs of consciousness lie smothered under the passive and mortal 
powers ; bul as these are made the avenues of moral health or disease 
in rarly culture, that tremendous existence which lies before the 
unconscious babe will prove a blessing or a curse. In relation to 
everj young denizen of earth, it is an important reflection, thai having 
once felt, it retains that feeling; the emotion of pleasure it has expe- 
rienced, thenceforth belongs to itself, and will recur with increased 
energy; that the pain it has once known belongs to itself, and nun- 
go on deepening it- pungency forever. Glory <>r infamy is bul a 
different direction of the same capacities. Soon from that youthful 
mind will come gleamings of thought and ebullitions of passion, and 
those same effervescing endowments may form a Catiline or a Cicero. 
The \eros and Herods, Newtons and Pauls, the scourges of earth, and 
its greatest benefactors, were once helpless infants. 

To our mind, this book on American Scenery has an import of the 
highest order. The diversified landscapes of our country exert no 
slight influence in creating our character as individuals, and in confirm- 
ing our destiny as a nation. Oceans, mountains, rivers, cataracts, wild 
woods, fragranl prairies, and melodious winds, are elements and exem- 
plifications of that general harmony which subsists throughoul the 
universe, and which is most potent over the most valuable minds. 
Every material object was designed for the use and reward of genius, to 
be turned into an intelligible hieroglyphic, and the memento of purest 
love. How strong this early influence and affection may become, it is 
dillicult to say. Hills, valleys, brooks, trees — our firsl and fondest 
friends beyond the domestic hearth — are never forgotten. Memory 
recalls the sunnj days of childhood and youth; and, like the green 
-pot in the desert, in which the weary traveller lingers with delight, 
bis toils and privations half forgotten, we love to ramble again amidsl 



SCENERY AND MIND. 



the scenes of earliest emotion and purest thought, rejoicing still that, 
wherever exiled, 

" Trees, and flowers, and brooks, 
Which do remember me of where I dwelt, 
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, 
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt 
My heart with recognition of their looks." 

We proceed to show that, in the physical universe, what is most 
abundant, is most ennobling ; what is most exalted, is most influential 
on the best minds ; and that, for these reasons, national intellect 
receives a prevailing tone from the peculiar scenery that most 
abounds. 

First, in the kingdoms of matter around us, what is most abundant 
in amount, is most ennobling in use. The mighty magician, Nature, 
produces the greatest variety of striking effects with the fewest means. 
There are only a sun, soil, rocks, trees, flowers, water, and an observing 
soul. Every thing in use depends upon this last, whether to the con- 
templator " love lends a precious seeing to the eye." Deep in the 
concave of "heaven is the luminary revealing all ; and deep in the soid 
of the illumined is a chord tenderly vibrating to the charms of all. 
The voices of every order of moving things, the silvery tones of flow- 
ing streams, the trembling tongues of leaves, the inarticulate melody 
of flowers, the vibrations of mighty hills, and the dread music of the 
spheres, all sublunary blending with all celestial notes, are not for a 
moment lost to the heart that listens. The haip of Menmon is not 
fabulous, properly interpreted. The devout lover of nature, seated on 
the mountain, or by the ocean, bathed in the golden sheen of opening 
day, will have his soul often stirred by melody divine as ever resound- 
ed from the mysterious harmonicon by the waters of the Nile. 



SCENERY AND MINI). 5 

Every rational inhabitant of earth is a focal point in the universe, 
a profoundly deep centre around which everj thing beautiful and 
sublime is arranged, and towards which, through the exercise of admi- 
ration, every refining influence is drawn. Wonderful, indeed, is the 
radiant thread that runs through every realm of outward creation, and 
enlinks all their diversified influences with the innermost fibres of the 
soul. This is the vital nerve by virtue of which the individual is 
related to the universe, and the universe is equally related to the indi- 
vidual. Through this, all physical powers combine to relieve spiritual 
wants. Earth contributes her fulness of wealth and majesty ; air 
ministers in all the Protean aspects of beauty and sublimity : lire, 
permeating e'v ery thing graceful and fair, gleams before the scrutinizing 
eye with a light more vivid than the lightning's Maze; and water is 
not only "queen of a thousand rills that fall in silver from the dewy 
stone," diffusing a "dulcet and harmonious breath" from the mosl 
sylvan haunts of man to his most crowded borne, but from continent 
to continent " pours the deep, eternal liass in nature's anthem, making 
music such as charms the ear of God." 

In this abundance there is an infinite variety, adapted to eveiy 
grade of intellect, and every condition in life. The hook of nature, 
which is the art of God, as Revelation is the word of his divinity, 
unfolds its innumerable leaves, all illuminated with glorious imagery, 
to the vision of his creature, man, and is designed t<i elevate op mm. the 
him by such influences a- emanate from foaming cataracts, glassy lakes, 
ami floating mists. For this beneficent purpose, fields bloom, forests 
wave, mountain- -oar, caverns open their jewelled mine-, constellations 
sparkle, clouds spread their variegated drapery, the sun radiates from 
horizon to zenith, and billows roll from pole to pole. In spring, all is 
vivacious with an overflowing newness of lite; in summer, gorgeous is 
the world to eveiy eye; autumn mellows at once the landscape with 



C» SCENERY AND MIND. 

its harvests, and the hearts that love every form of matured and pro- 
lific worth ; even winter, deserted as may be her temple of the 
thoughtless and vain, suggests, through hoar-frost and withered leaves, 
lessons of greatest value to votaries who evermore aspire to be truly 
wise. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds has said that " Nature denies her instructions 
to none who desire to become her pupils;" but a great deal depends 
upon the motives with which we enter her school. It will be to a low 
purpose, surely, if our investigations are conducted in a predominantly 
utilitarian spirit, recognizing in the laws according to which the 
Divinity works merely the handmaids to sensual indulgence, rather 
than the instruments of the noblest use. It is thus that nature is 
made to present herself to gross minds, not as a quiet and awful tem- 
ple, but as a plenteous kitchen, or voluptuous bancpieting-hall. By 
this we do not mean that the sentiments which elevate are ever unna- 
tural. Nature is most truly herself when she stands revealed to her 
votary in the most refined and suggestive form. The Apollo Belvidere 
is indescribably more natural than any rustic of Teniers, or any alle- 
gorical figure of Bubens. The master-scenes of nature, however, like 
the masterpieces of transcendent art, require for the inexperienced, 
yet earnest admirer, an interpreter ; to the lukewarm and careless 
they are ever partially, if not completely, incomprehensible. Like 
certain delicate plants, their essential beauties shrink under rough 
handling, and become dimness to the profanity of a casual glance; 
they unveil themselves most fully to the enraptured, and pour the 
etl'ulgence of their splendid mysteries into the fixed eye of him only 
who gazes on the charms he has studiously sought, and adores for 
their own dear sake. Thus employed, the most copious productions 
of God exert the most ennobling influence. They quicken thought 
and inspire humility, thus verifying the experience of the poet: 



SC K N K l: V A ND MIND. i 

" 1 moved on 
In low and languid mood : for I had found 
Thai outward forms, the loftiest, still receive 
Their finer influence from the Life within." 

In viewing magnificent scenes, the soul, expanded and sublimed, is 
imbued with a spirit of divinity, and appeals, as it were, associated 
with the Deitj himself. For, as the shepherd feels himself ennobled, 
while communing with his sovereign, the beholder, in a far nobler 
degree, feels himself advanced to a higher scale in the creation, in 
being permitted to sec and admire the grandest of nature's works. 
All vigorous souls prize most highly that healthy and expansive exer- 
cise of mind which is attained chiefly by traversing rugged paths and 
scaling celestial heights, in order to breathe pure and bracing air. To 
the querj whether beneficial effects actually attend such excursions, 
let Sydney Smith reply: "I, for one, strongly believe in the affirma- 
tive of the question,— that Nature speaks to the mind of man imme- 
diately in beautiful and sublime language; that she astonishes him 
with magnitude, appals him with darkness, .leer- him with splendor, 
soothes him with harmony, captivates him with emotion, enchants him 
with fame; she never intended man should walk among her dowers, 
and her fields, and her streams, unmoved ; nor did she rear the 
strength of the hills in vain, or mean that we should look with a 
stupid heart on the wild glory of the torrent, bursting from the dark- 
le- of the forest, and dashing over the crumbling rock. I would as 
soon deny hardness, or softness, or figure, to he qualities of matter, as 
I would denj beauty or sublimity to belong to its qualities." 

Mind is itself the strongest agency over mind ; and ne\t to this, 
in dignity and worth, is the potency of such inanimate productions as 
are pleasing in their aspect, or awe-inspiring in their form. This is 



8 SCENEEYAND MIND. 

an influence which effectively appeals to the spirits of our race in 
every condition of life. Wherever the faintest ray of intelligence has 
dawned, thither does it come, and there with ever increasing dominion 
dwell. The savage is not too rude, nor the child too infantile, to be 
either refined or fortified by its lessons. Nature is an element which 
cannot be excluded, and which ought to be so directed as to produce 
the most agreeable and beneficent results. True, venerable mountains 
and verdant plains, with all their terrors and all their glories, are but 
pictures to the blind and music to the deaf, when a perceiving eye and 
appreciating soul are wanting. But with these endowments in exer- 
cise, however dim, dwellers in the midst of bold scenery are harder 
workers, greater readers, and better thinkers, than persons of equal 
rank elsewhere. Through the serene medium of their lofty elevation, 
they are less impressed by the pettiness of man and his affairs, than 
by the graceful magnitude of what the Almighty has spread through 
infinite fields around. Living with supreme delight far above a Lilli- 
putian standard, the mind swells into something of the colossal gran- 
deur it admires. A majestic landscape, often scanned and truly loved, 
imparts much of its greatness to the mind and heart of the spectator ; 
so that while the species may dwindle in relative worth, the individual 
is ennobled by the expansion he has received. Even a transient visit 
to localities strongly characterized by what is intrinsically elegant or 
grand, leaves the noblest impression on susceptible souls. Charles 
Lamb relates, with his accustomed happy style, that on returning to 
his desk at the India House, after a brief sojourn amidst the Hdls and 
Lakes of Westmoreland, he thought much less highly of himself than 
while invested with the mingled beauty and majesty of magnificent 
mountain scenery. Well might his loving school-fellow and great 
brother in devotion to Nature's el i an ns, Coleridge, say, in addressing 
his little child : 



SC 1. N E K V A N 1» M INI). J 

•• I was reai d 
In ihr great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, 
An.l saw naughl lovel) but the sky and stare. 
Hut thou, my babe, shall wander like a brei a 
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags 
Of ancient mountain, ami beneath tin- clouds, 
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores 
And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear 
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible 
01' that eternal language, which thy God 
Utters, who from eternity doth teach 
Himself in all, and all things in himself : 
Great universal teacher ! lb' shall mould 
Thy spirit, and by giving make il ask." 

Thus tar our first point, namely, that, in the outward creation, 
whatever is most abundant is most ennobling in its influence on our 
inner faculties. In the second place, we proceed t<> show, thai the 
Qoblesl aspects and energies of nature have tin- finest and firmesl con- 
trol over the besl minds. 

AH eminent geniuses are close observers of rural objects, and 
enthusiastic admirers of imposing scenery. There can lie no approxi- 
mation towards universal development, save as one lays tin- entire 
universe under contribution to his personal cultivation, lie must 
absorb into his expanded soul resources from every kingdom com- 
petent to render him a sovereign indeed over the realms oi emo- 
tion and thought. He that would fortifj a onanl arm to -ever an 
isthmus or tunnel mountains, as a pathway for the nation-, or wield a 
gianl mind that can quicken and mould the sentiment- of other men 
gigantic like himself, must habitually feed on that aliment which i- 
won in stray gifts by whosoever will find, and which, when attained, 
constitutes "a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets where no crude surfeil 



1 S C E X E E Y AND JI I N D . 

reigns." Tlie public man whose sphere is most comprehensive, and 
whose exhausting toils are most distracting, will probably be indebted 
to youthful and serener avocations in humbler scenes for his sweetest 
solace and most enduring strength. The experience and sagacity of a 
great philosopher justify this assertion : " I speak, sir, of those who, 
though bred up under our unfavorable system of education, have yet 
held, at times, some intercourse with Nature, and with those great 
minds whose works have been moulded by the spirit of Nature : who, 
therefore, when they pass from the seclusion and constraint of early 
study, bring with them, into the new scene of the world, much of the 
pure sensibility which is the spring of all that is greatly good in 
thought and action." 

All great passions are fed, and all great systems are projected in 
solitude. Wide and dense masses of mankind form the appropriate 
held whereon superior talents are to be exercised ; but, to the aspir- 
ing, the distraction and attrition of large cities are rather evils to be 
shunned, since they vitiate if not destroy that purity and calm which 
are essential to the best growth of mind. The predestined hero in 
moral warfare will avoid the broad and boisterous way, if he be wise ; 
and, like the Pythagoreans of old, he will betake himself to some 
sequestered spot, there alone to mature the vigor of his thoughts. If 
he would elicit a train of sentiments the profoundest and best, let him 
wander through the shady walks and silent groves of the country, 
where all things tend to arm and elevate the soul. The song of birds 
and hum of bees will not profitless fall on his ear. Fields enamelled 
with verdure, and trees clothed in garments almost divine, the stdlness 
of nature in her secret glens, and the awful import of her more vocal 
majesty, must recall the universal Creator in modes the most palpable 
to a meditative pupil in this university for all designed, and at the 
same time will most imbue him with the immense repose with which 



S< i \ 1: i: v a n i> m i n i). 1] 

creation is crowned. Forma of -lory hovering over foresl and field 
on tin- river's bank, the lake's brim, ocean's strand, or around moun- 
tain-peaks, create glorious forms in admiring souls. Thej confer .'11) 
inspiration which kindles afresh over each now objecl worth] of 
esteem, and forever keep burning on the altar of the heart a flame 
which infinitude perpetually draws near hoth to purify and feed. It 
'w our bliss to cherish those early recollections, without which all 
other- are null and void, and which should be wedded to memory 
foiv\ er. 

" You of all names the sweetest and the best : 
You Muses, Books, and Liberty, and Rest : 
Vim Gardens, Fields, and W Is." 



It i- no valid objection to our argument to remind us thai some 
"misuse the bounteous Pan, and think the gods amiss." That is to 
quote the perversion of a prih ilege, and not its legitimate use. Petrarch, 
for instance, only aggravated the fires thai consumed him, when he 
buried himself in the lonely recesses of Vaucluse. Bu1 had he gone 
there to study "the quahrl mossiness of aged roots" by day, and at nighl 
gazed with acutest sympathy upon "the star of Jove, so beautiful and 
large,"- instead of tamely succumbing before "the patient brilliance 
of the moon ;" had he been ambitious rather to "live in the rainbow 
and play in the plighted clouds," he might, on the bleakesl summit, 
and with a richer facility than in the pampered palace, have created 
" Eschylean shape- of the sublime," and been imbued with energies 
uobler tar than ever graced the marble porch where wisdom was wonl 
to teach with Socrates and 'Fully. It has been annum' deserts, on 
islands, in caverns, or when hidden by other drapers of seclusion the 
most opaque, thai philosophers, statesmen, and heroes, have obtained 



12 SCENERY AND MIND. 

that faith and fervor by wMch they secured triumphant success in the 
end, even though martyrdom was their road. 

The best education consists in the most thorough training of natu- 
ral energy. In all moral architecture, as in material, the elegant 
should rest on the substantial, and clearly indicate the firmness it 
adorns. Large portions of a temple admit of being highly polished, 
but he would not be a very wise builder who should set about his 
structure with nothing but polishings. They who have "yellowed 
themselves among rolls and records" are not generally the persons 
who exert the most salutary influence, and make the most indelible 
impress on mankind. On the contrary, happiest and mightiest are 
they who are bom and reared where free course is allowed to the 
influences with which creative power has beuignantly surrounded us. 
u Happy they who are located in the true infant-school of God ami 
Nature; on whom this grand moving panorama sheds all its changing 
lights, and bestows all its successive scenes ; who watch the revolving 
stars, and the progression of bright constellations, in no bounded 
horizon; for whom there are the infinite effects, daily and nightly, of 
sunlight and moonlight, over hill and plain, — -better still if the vast 
ocean add its shifting colors and the accompaniment of its continuous 
ami resounding anthem; to whom a hundred birds and plants, in 
rapid succession, tell of advancing spring; whose months the flowers 
calendar; whose autumn is infallibly marked by the ripened grain and 
the sheaves of joyous harvest ; who make an era in the few years of 
their chronology by some more memorable storm or severer frost ; 
and who change their sports and occupations with changing nature, 
receiving through every inlet the influences of God's spirit, and 
rejoicing in all. Not that children can feel the beaut}- or the gran- 
deur, still le-s dive into the wisdom of this mighty scheme of things, 
but ///- stimulus is on them, the novelty is adapted to and excites 



s c E N K i: V A N D MIND. 1 .". 

tli-iii ; Nature has her way within fchem as well as parents and teach- 
ers ; and the senses do Buch duty as in the crowded city school-n 

they never yet performed nor ever can. And thus they goon from 
infancy to youth, growing in the best knowledge of humanity : a 
knowledge of the world in which God has placed them ; and thereby 
becoming lit to grapple with the difficulties and triumph in the moral 
conflicts thai will present themselves in maturer life, as they come into 
the world that man has fashioned." 

The superiority of nature over art, as a source of pleasure and 
profit, is worthy of special note. When we enter magnificent monu- 
ments of human skill, we are at lirst struck with the costbj decorations 
of wood, pigments, marble, and gold. But after repeated view-, we 
feel no longer charmed, ami the mental pleasure received at the lir-t 
glance i> continually decreased. Whereas, in contemplating the works 
of nature, from the minutest specimen to the most majestic, and most 
powerfully when the sense of perception is armed with greatesl clear- 
ness and force, the devotee feels that the luxury of observation i- con- 
stantly enhanced. The prospect of the country never satiates us; the 

landscape, with all its changes, is ever new, and every day invests it 

with some fresh aspect to delight and invigorate the mind. Love of 
natural objects, and especially a preference lor whatever makes scenery 
of the wilder or more romantic kind, is a prevailing element in all 
character of the most marked and practical use. There is down upon 
the breasl of eagles; and the strongest men have usually the gentlesl 
natures, because they habitually live in intimate and affectionate alli- 
ance with the mildest as well as mightiest influence. As an elephanl 
crashes through jungles and over crags, whetting his tu>ks, and as the 
imperial bird of prej seeks some storm-worn summit to sharpen his 
talon-, so every one, quick to feel ami invincible to subdue, like 
Achilles, will court retirement in great nature's quiet nook-, where he 



14 MENEBY AND WIND. 

may recruit his mental strength and string his how. Archimedes, a 
man of stupendous genius, was accustomed to say, that, next to the 
solution of a problem, was the pleasure of an evening walk in the 
suburbs of Syracuse. Descartes, having settled the place of a planet 
in the morning, would amuse himself in the evening by weeding and 
watering a lied of flowers. Gray, one of the most intellectual and 
fastidious of men, says, "Happy they who can create a rose-tree, or 
erect a honey-suckle ; who can watch the brood of a hen, or a fleet of 
their own ducklings as they sail upon the water." The love of nature 
is, indeed, instinctive in all superior minds. Philosophers living in the 
time of Philostratus were accustomed to retire to the shades of Mount 
Athos, where " Meditation might think down hours to moments. 1 ' 
Catullus, Martial, and Statins were ardent admirers of rural life; 
especially so were Atticus, Tacitus, and Epictetus. Cicero, who valued 
himself more upon his taste for the cultivation of philosophy, than 
upon his talents for oratory, had no less than eighteen different coun- 
try residences in various parts of his beautiful native land. He speaks 
of them in terms of fondest attachment ; and they were all situated 
in such delightful points of view, as to deserve being called " the eyes 
of Italy." The retreat of Tusculum was his favorite residence. It 
was the most elegant mansion of that elegant age ; and the beauty of 
the landscape around it, adding a higher worth to the site than all 
tlie charms Atticus could purchase tor its master at Athens, to the 
highest degree refined the taste of its accomplished possessor. When, 
fatigued with business, and happy in being allowed the indulgence of 
sequestered recreation, the great master of the Forum, " from whose 
lips sweet eloquence distilled, as honey from the bee," could mingle in 
the unrestrained companionship of such friends as Scipio and Atticus 
and Laelius, at Caieta and Laurentum, they together strove to grow 
boys again in their amusements, and derived no ignoble pleasure from 



SCE \ i: i; V AND MINK. ] .", 

gathering shells upon the sea-shore. Simplicity and dignity always 
coalesce with the utmost gentleness and good-nature, in the persons 
and amusements of the truly great. They are equal to the society of 
the mosl refined and erudite, in all the delicate sobrietj of exalted 
life; and, with equal spontaneity of native greatness and acquired 
-face, can run, shout, ami leap, with juvenile thoughts and limbs. It 
is nut in the least surprising i<> find Cicero so often urging us to studj 
the natural beauties of the country in which we live. lie asserts it to 
lie the mosl auspicious pleasure of youth, and the most soothing j"\ of 
serene old age. Livy and Sallust were also vividly conscious of such 
impressions, and of the worth they confer. Pliny the younger declared 
himself never to have been happier than when he was indulging him- 
self at his country seats, where in healthful leisure he wrote his works, 
and celebrated the views which his villas afforded. "If life were not. 
too short," says Sir William Jones, "for the complete discharge of all 
our respective duties, public and private, and for the acquisition of 
uecessary knowledge in any degree of perfection, with how much 
pleasure and improvement might a great pari of it he spent, in admir- 
ing the beauties of this wonderful orb!" The graces willingly lend 
their /.one to embellish and fortify the passions of a uoble breast. 
Assi mil ating to himself the richest contributions from all sources of 
the beautiful, the true, ami the sublime, the severest student and most 
useful citizen secures to himself the delightful companionship of that 
potent and infallible guide described by Campbell: 

" Taste, like the silent dial's power, 
Which, iv ben supernal light is given, 
Can measure inspiration's hour, 
An.! tell its height in heaven!" 

We have now considered two positions, assumed at the outset: 



16 SCENERY AND WIND. 

first, what is most abundant in nature is most ennobling in its effects ; 
and, secondly, that the best minds are most influenced by natural 
excellence. It remains to indicate, thirdly, how character, as stamped 
on literature, has ever been toned by the predominant characteristics 
of native scenery. 

In portraying the influence which the inanimate creation exerts 
upon mind and letters every where, we employ what has been univer- 
sally felt and acknowledged. The wise man in his lonely turret, high 
among the palaces of Bali) Ion, and the unsophisticated shepherd as he 
watched his flocks at midnight on the plains of Chaldea, recognized in 
the aspects and movements of the planetary world an intimate relation 
to the mysterious vicissitudes of human life, and the otherwise unre- 
vealed determinations of human destiny. In the constitution of man- 
kind, the religious instinct and literary taste are intimately allied, and 
seem, indeed, to a great extent, the same. "The untutored negro, 
wlu-n he prostrates himself on the reedy bank of his native stream, 
and adores the Deity of the stream in the shape of the crocodile, or 
bows before the poison tree, in reverence to the God of poisons, obeys 
this native impulse of humanity, no less than the disciple of Zoroaster 
who climbs the highest mountain tops, uusoiled by the profane foot- 
steps of trade or of curiosity, where the air is ever pure, and the sun 
greets the earth with its earliest light, to pay his vows and offer his 
incense to the visible symhols of Divinity, to his mind themselves 
divinities; or the outcast Guebre, Avho with forbidden and untold of 
rites, worships an ever burning flame — to him the elemental principle 
of nature." The character of the early patriarchs was no doubt chiefly 
moulded by the peculiarity of their habitation and pursuits. Their 
manner of life upon the great oceans of wilderness and pasture, gave 
breadth and elasticity to their intellects. The free mountain winds 
had leave t<> blow against them, their eyes drank the rivers with 



s c e N i: i: v a n i) m i x D. 17 

delight, and the vault of heaven under which they dwelt, with all its 
mightj stars, elevated their feelings no less than it expanded their 
minds. 

The Hebrew prophets of a later day lived equally in the eye of 
nature. Says (liltillan : " We always figure them with cheeks em- 
browned by the nouns of the East. The sun had looked on them, 
but it was Lovingly — the moon had ' smitten ' them, but it was with 
poetry, uot madness — they had drunk in fire, the fire of Eastern day, 
from a hundred sources — from the lukewarm brooks of their land, 
from the rich colors of their vegetation, from their mornings of 
unclouded brightness, from their afternoons of thunder, from the large 
stars of their evenings and nights. The heat of their climate was 
strong enough to enkindle hut not to enervate their frames, inured as 
they were to toil, fatigue, fasting, and frequent travel. They dwelt, in 
a land of hills and valleys, of brooks and streams, of spots of exube- 
rant vegetation, of iron-ribbed rocks and mountains — a land, on one 
side, dipping down in the Mediterranean Sea, on another, floating up 
into Lebanon, and on the others, edged by deserts, teeming at once 
with dreadful scenerj andsecrets- — through which had passed of old 

time the march of the Almighty, and where his anger had left for its 

memorials, here, the sandj sepulchre of those thousands whose car- 
casses fell in the wilderness, and there, a whole head Sea of vengeance, 
lowering amid a desolation lit to be the very gateway to hell: — • 
standing between their song and subject-matter, and such a fiery clime, 
and such stern scenery, the Hebrew bards were enabled to indite a 
languaOi more deeply dyed in the colors of the sun, more intensely 
metaphorical, more faithfully transcriptive of nature, a simple!', and 

yet larger utterance, than ever before or since rushed out from the 

heart and tongue of man." 

But no where do the instincts of man, in their alliance with his 



]S s (' E X E R Y A N D MIND. 

noblest productions, appear more strongly marked by the influence of 
surrounding scenery, than in the early training and national literature 
of "pagan Greece." That wonderful people seem fully to Lave under- 
stood that man was made to grow up harmoniously, with simultaneous 
expansion of trunk, branch, and foliage, as grows a tree ; the sap of 
immortal energy must circulate without hindrance in every fibre, 
maturing fruits perennial and divine. 

Two laws manifestly govern the constitution of our being, a clue 
regard to which is indispensable to our highest welfare. In the first 
place, in proportion as the physical nature of man is developed by 
suitable discipline, winning the greatest vigor of limb, and the greatest 
acuteness of sense, he will derive important aids to the intellect and 
moral powers from the perfections of his outward frame. Moreover, 
by a delightful reaction, the mind, in proportion as it is invigorated 
and beautified, gives strength and elegance to the body, and enlarges 
the sphere of action and enjoyment. These laws have been observed 
by the best educators of the world. At Athens, the gymnasia became 
temples of the Graces. In these appropriate fields of moral training, 
the refined Greek could -ratify his fondness for the beautiful, sur- 
rounded ou every hand by the combined charms of nature and art. 
Every festival of childhood was rendered enchanting with flowers and 
music; the barge, as it was pushed in boyish sport on the lake, was 
crowned with garlands ; the oars were moved to the sound of "sweet 
recorders," and the patriotic mother at home sang an inspiring lullaby, 
as she rocked her infant to sleep in the broad shield of its robust 
father. There were wrestlings for all classes in the palaestra, as well 
as races and heroic contests for the foremost ranks; there were gay 
revels on the mountain-sides, and moonlight dances in the groves. 
The popular games described in the twenty-fourth book of the Ihad, 
and the eighth of the Odyssey, all relate to important elements in 



- < I IB E K V A N I) MIND. 1 '.I 

national education. Those ancient festivals had the finesl influence 
upon the inhabitants of the metropolis, and upon those who dwelt the 
most remote. Every pilgrim through such land-, to such shrines, 
became Briareus-handed and Argus-eyed. The beautiful scenes, full 
of patriotic and refined associations, which every where arrested his 
attention, gave him the traveller's " thirstj eye," filled his mind with 
thri lli n g reminiscences, and caused him to return to his home glov ing 
with brilliant descriptions and burdened with exalted thoughts. It 
was thus that the youthful Greek mingled with his studies pedestrian 
exercise and acute observation, formed his hod}- to fatigue, while he 
stored his mind with the choicest ideas, and became equally skilled in 
handling a sword, subduing a horse, or building a temple. Such was 
the education found in the Lyceum where Aristotle lectured, and in 

•• 'Hi.- olive-grove of Academe, 
Plato's retirement, where the attic bird 
Trills ber thick-warbled notes the summer long: 
There flowery liil! Hymettus, with tin' sound 
Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites 
To studious musingr." 



No Grecian city was without its public squares, airy colonnades, 

Bpacious halls, and shadj groves; herein the ] pie lived, transacted 

their business, passed their leisure, and improved their minds. The 
serene heaven which that land enjoys, was the best-loved roof of its 
population; the grateful breeze, resounding sea, and brilliant sun, were 
their perpetual recreation and delight. The country was looked upon 

•'- affording th dy happy home. Large towns were regarded as 

huge prisons, but these were made as rural as possible. Whatever 
splendors mighl -lean: from the Capitol, Tan and his rustic train were 



20 SCENERY AND MIND. 

most fascinating to the popular intellect and heart. Familiar as the 
sensibilities and imagination of the people were with the outward 
world, and connecting the changing seasons and fruits of earth with 
some occult power that regulated and produced them, their enthusiasm 
created and sustained presiding deities, propitions in the calm, and 
adverse in the storm. Every gushing fountain was the dwelling of a 
nymph; dryads shared with man the shelter and repose of groves; on 
each hill an oread presided benignantly over the shepherds and their 
flocks ; while a goddess, more fruitful than " the silver-shafted cpieen, 
for ever chaste," glided before the reapers, and shook the golden har- 
vest from her lap on every plain. Speakers and writers the most 
popular, were so because they shared most, and expressed most clearly, 
the popular feeling. Of all literatures, the Grecian is most clearly 
marked with a thoroughly out-of-door character. Fresh morning ah 
breathes through and glows about its twin first-births of Poetry and 
Philosophy, like the clear sky which still hangs above the two lofty 
peaks of Parnassus. One of the most delightful treatises that antiquity 
has transmitted to us, is the GCcononiics of Xenophon, in which the 
pursuits and pleasures of husbandry are described in that beautiful 
manner which best befits the subject. And Pindar, as if expressing 
the universal conviction, as well as the most cherished affection of his 
race, has said, that " he deserves to be called the most excellent, who 
knows much of nature." 

Respecting the harmony of the physical temperature, landscapes, 
and literature of Greece, an intelligent traveller has recently testified 
as follows : " The beauty of the scenery, so far as my experience 
extends, was unsurpassed by any in the world. For no where are 
land and water mixed together in such just proportions ; islands and 
bays break the monotony of the one, and relieve and repeat the beau- 
ties of the other; and no where do soft valleys fade more insensibly 



SC E \ E i: v AND M i \ i). 21 

into sublime mountains: ami when one of these was crowned by 
forests, and the other richlj cultivated ami studded with gardens and 
habitations, it must have surpassed all other lauds, ami almost doe- so 
now." It is evident that, it' the climate was not so luxurious as that 
of Egypt, it was far more exhilarating, ami instead of tending to ener- 
vate, was sufficiently severe always to invigorate, while it was at the 
same time so genial as to invesl the general aspect of nature with the 
loveliesl charm, and to awaken all the more delicate emotions of the 
human heart. We know from her admiring writers, that in that land 
of the cicada and the nightingale, each sound was melody, and all the 
hues of earth and heaven were harmonious, like the leaves of " Spring's 
sweetest book, the rose." Fine thought was spontaneous and vet per- 
fect, as the song of nature's own melodists, "singing of summer in full- 
throated ease;" and the softest combinations of articulate expression 
were but echoes of the notes which joyous zephyrs elicited along the 
dirt's of I'arnes, or wafted from the groves of Colonus. The deification 
of enthusiasm, embodied in the worship of Dionysos, cannot, under 
such circumstances, excite surprise. Among a people so full of in-pi- 
ration, adoration under some form was a grateful vent, ami a primary 
necessity. The agrarian religion of the Pelasgic herdsmen to the last 
occupied the Athenian acropolis, while the later and more delicate 
system of Ionian mythology spread its temples over the subjacent 
plains. This latter is known to modern times in the literature of clas- 
sical paganism. The pleasing ritual which the beech-woods of Thrace 
contributed to that system, in the worship of Apollo and the Muses, 
was a romantic element which found easj access to the Greek mind, 
and was welcome there. Oracular places testified that earth was the 
vehicle of revelations to man, whether it were by her own vaporous 
breath, whispering in the oak branches, the ftight ami voices of her 
creature-, or the sportive cycles into which inscribed leaves were 



22 SCENERY AND MIND. 

strown by the wind. Hence arose the pantheism of antiquity, which 
worshiped earth herself as the supreme divinity ; a self-originated 
storehouse of all power and knowledge, in whose awful centre, over 
which Delphi stood, all beneficent and malignant virtues were permit- 
ted to contend and awe the world with the sublime mystery of their 
strife. 

The Greek mythology exhibits much more appreciation of, and 
minuter inquisiti< >n into natural phenomena than the literature of the 
Romans. To the mind of the latter nation every thing was more 
objective; and yet the master-spirits among them were far from being 
indifferent to the beauties and sublimities of the material world. The 
fact of Catullus having a villa so far from Rome as the peninsula of 
Sermione, where he could look at rugged Alps, is but one of many 
instances we have of Romans in love with natural beauty. The best 
minds there, as elsewhere, knew that the true method of viewing all 
created things, is to unite poetry to science, and to enlist both in the 
pursuit of truth, in order that both may purify the heart and aggran- 
dize the mind. Said Cicero, "There is nothing so delightful in litera- 
ture as that branch which enables us to discern the immensity of 
nature ; and which, teaching us magnanimity, rescues the soul from 
obscurity." The practice of this great man comported with his theory, 
and substantiated it. He tells us in his letters, that when most crushed 
with professional cares, he would retire for weeks together from public 
life, and recreate himself in his quiet Cnman villa, where he enjoyed 
fresh breezes from the Tuscan ocean, that rolled beneath his windows, 
and where, thus invigorated, he wrote his famous six books upon 
Government. Such thinkers ever derive their finest inspiration and 
firmest strength from great nature, whose every kingdom they pant to 
explore; their imperial career is "known to every star and every 
wind that blows," giving the assurance that what they say and do will 



SC E \ E K V A Ml M I N II. 23 

survive in perpetually augmented power, "when tyrants' crests and 
tombs of brass are spent." In all their purposes ami pursuits, they 
aspire only to a place 

"Amid ili' august and never-dying light 
Of constellated spirits, who have gained 
A name in heaven, by power >>\' heavenly deeds." 

No writer, among the Romans, has shown a greater relish for 
natural beauty, than Horace. He might well rank himself among: the 
•■ lovers of the country ;" not only as his works abound in its praises, 
but because he could prefer his Sabine retreat to a distinguished posi- 
tion at the court of Augustus. The odes of this accurate observer of 
men and things abound with exquisite pictures of rural pursuits, con- 
nected with the diversified incidents and manners of life. If he cele- 
brates the powers of wine, the pleasure of sitting under the umbrageous 
foliage and luscious clusters is not forgotten. If the charms of his 
mistress lie the theme of his soul;', the rose is nut more beautiful, nor 
has the Mulct a perfume more sweet. When war is pint raxed, he for- 
gets not to contrasl its pains and its bloody horrors with the tranquil 
and innocent pleasures of a smiling landscape, enlivened with the hum 
of rural sport and prolific cultivation. The woods and fields he loved 
were enjoyed as often as pos>il>le; and when confined to his couch at 
Home, he still delights in the remembrance of vernal and vintage inci- 
dent-, when vigorous husbandmen urge their team, and bappy peasants 
shoul the harvest-home. " Ah !" exclaims he, " how delighted lam, 
when wandering among steep rocks and the sombre wilderness; since 
the shades of forests and the murmuring of waters inspire my fancy, 
and will render me renowned. Sing, oh! ye virgins, the beauties of 
Thessalian Tempe, and the wandering isle of Delos : celebrate, oh ! 



24 S C E X E R Y AND MIND. 

ye youths, the charms of that goddess, who delights in flowing rivers 
mid the shades of trees; who lives on the mountain of Algidus, among 
the impenetrable woods of Erymanthus, and on the green and fertile 
Cragus." 

Virgil alludes less frequently to the climate and scenery of Italy, 
1 rat he was thoroughly imbued with the mild splendor which adorns 
that beautiful clime. Though he seems always wishing for the cool 
valleys of rheums, and is most acutely appreciative of the more clas- 
sical regions of Greece, he was by no means indifferent to the diversi- 
fied charms of his native land. This we know from his history, can 
perceive it in his writings, and have felt it most when standing amid 
the glories that mantle his chosen grave. 

The Romans, not less than the Greeks, in feeling their way 
through mythologic gloom, were conscious of a preternatural awe 
which gleamed upon them from cavernous waters and darkened from 
shaggy hills. " Where is a lofty and deeply-shaded grove," writes 
Seneca, " filled with venerable trees, whose interlacing boughs shut out 
the face of heaven, the grandeur of the wood, the silence of the place, 
the shade so dense and uniform, infuse into the breast the notion of a 
divinity.' 1 Hence the cpiickened imagination of the ancients, striving 
to supply a void which nature had created but could not fill, peopled 
each grove, fountain, or grotto, with a captivating train of sylvan 
deities. Intercourse with these, in the scenes which they sanctified, 
was deemed more auspicious to health and morals, than the arid and 
vitiating influence of crowded towns. Plutarch, for instance, after 
asserting that the troubled life of cities is injurious to the study of 
philosophy, and that solitude is the school of wisdom, proceeds to 
show, that the pure air of the country, and the absence of all disturb- 
ance from within, conduce most to the instruction and purification 
of the soul. "On this account, also," he adds, "the temples of the 



S E x E i: v a \ D m i \ i>. 25 

.-'■"Is, as many as were constructed in ancient times vvere always in 
solitary places, especially the temples of the Muses ami of Pan, and 
of the .\\ mphs of Apollo, and of as many as were guides of harmony : 
judging, I suppose, that cities were necessarilj fearful ami polluted 
places for the education of youth." 

In contemplating the relative influence of scenerj on mind, we 
shall probably conclude that mountains exert the greatest ami most 
salutary power. The intellect of a people, in its primitive unfoldings 
amid elemental grandeurs, lies as it were in Nature's arms, feeds at her 
breast, looks up into her face, smiles at her smiles, shudders at her 
frowns, is adorned with her ^acefulness, and fortified with her 
strength. Beauty ami sublimity are thus interfused and commingled 
with the whole substance of the mind, as the --low of perfect health 
mixes itself with the whole substance of the body, unthought of, it 
may lie, until the world is reminded of its potent fascination in deeds 
the mightiest and most beneficent. The mind and works of individuals 
tend strongly to assimilate with the nature of their parent soil. Dr. 
Clarke thought that the lofty genius of Alexander was nourished l>\ 
the majestic presence of mount Olympus, under the shadow of which 
he may be said to have been born and bred. Grand natural scenery 
tend- permanently to affect the character of those cradled in its 
bosom, is the nurserj of patriotism the mosl firm and eloquence the 
mos1 thrilling. Elastic as the air they breathe, five and joyous as the 
torrents that dash through their rural possessions, strong as the granite 
highlands from which they wring a hardy livelihood, the enterprising 
children of the hills, noble and high-minded bj original endowment, 
are like the glorious regions of rugged adventure they love to occupy. 
This is an universal rule. The Foulahs dwelling on the high Alps of 
Africa, are as superior to the tribes living beneath, as the inhabitants 
of Cashmere are above the Hindoos, or as the Tyrolese are nobler 

4 



26 SCENERY AND MIND. 

than the Arab race. The physical aspect and moral traits of nations 
are in a great measure influenced by their local position, circumstances 
of climate, popular traditions, and the scenery in the midst of which 
they arise. The transition from the monotonous plains of Lombardy 
to the bold precipices of Switzerland is, in outward nature, exactly 
like that, in inward character, from the crouching and squalid appear- 
ance of the brutalized peasant, to the independent air and indomitable 
energy of the free-born and intelligent mountaineer. The athletic 
form and fearless eye of the latter bespeaks the freedom he has won to 
enjoy and perpetuate, the invigorating elements he buffets in hardy 
toil, and the daring aspirations he is fearless and fervid to indulge. 
Liberty has ever preferred to dwell in high places, and thence comes 
she down through fields and towns, revealing the glory of her counte- 
nance, and diffusing her inspiration through undaunted breasts. 

" Of old sat Freedom on the heights, 
The thunders breaking at her feet : 
Above her shook the starry lights : 
She heard the torrents meet. 

Within her palace she did rejoice. 

Self-gathered in her prophet-mind ; 
But fragments of her mighty voice 

Came rolling on tin- wind." 

There is in the. elements of our humanity a perpetual sympathy 
with the accompaniments of its hrst development. Nearly all the 
heroism, moral excellence, and ennobling literature of the world, litis 
been produced by those who, in infancy and youth, were fostered by 
the influence of exalted regions, where rocks and Avilderness are piled 
in l>old and inimitable shapes of savage, grandeur, tinged with the hues 



S< E N E i: V AND MIND. 27 

of untold centuries, and over which awe-inspiring storms often sweep 
with thunders in their train. This is the influence which more than 
half created the Shakspeares, Miltons, Wordsworths, Scotts, Coleridges, 
[rvings, Coopers, Bryants, and Websters of the world; and without 
much pei"sona] acquaintance with such scenes, it is impossible for a 
reader to comprehend their highest individualitj of character so as 
fully to relish the best qualities of their works. 

Nearest allied to mountains in their natural effects, is the influence 
of oceans on national mind. The infinite is ino-t palpably impressed 
upon the boundless deep; and wherever thought is accustomed with 
unimpeded wing to soar from plains, or traverse opening \ istas through 
towering hills, that it may Lover over the azure waste of waters 

becalmed, or outs] d their foam-crested billows in wildest storms, 

there will literature present the brightest lineaments and possess the 
richest "Worth. The Greek was a hardy mountaineer, with the mosl 
delicate faculties of body and soul, but lie was not imprisoned by his 
mountains. Whenever lie sealed a height, old Ocean, gleaming with 
eternal youth, wooed him to her embrace, in older to hear him to 
some happy island of her far-otf domain. < >n every hand constantly 
appeared tin- two greatest stimulants on earth to emotion and thought. 
The voice of the .Mountains, and the voice of the Sea, "each a mighty 
voice,' were r\rr rousing and guiding him; each counteracting the 
ultra influence of its opposite. The sea expanded the range and scope 
of his thoughts, which the mountain-valleys might have hurtfulK 
restrained. For want of this salutary blending of excitement and 
control, it is, perhaps, mainly owing that neither Tyre nor Carthage, 
Dotwithstanding their power and wealth, occupies any notable place in 
the intellectual history of mankind. But to the Greeks, the waste of 
water- was an inexhaustible mine of mental wealth. They were an 
amphibious race, lords of land and sea. On shore and afloat the\ 



28 SCENERY AND MIND. 

were eager listeners to the two great heralds, " Liberty's chosen music," 
calling them to freedom ; and nol >ly did they answer to the call, when 
the sound of the mighty Pan was ringing on their soul, at Marathon 
and Therniopyla?, at Salamis and Platea. 

Thirlwall, and Frederic Schlegel, have both called attention to 
the fact, that the literature of the West is differenced from the litera- 
ture of the East, by the same character which distinguishes Europe 
from its neighboring continents, — the great range of its coasts, com- 
pared with the extent of its surface. And Goethe suggests that " per- 
haps it is the sight of the sea from youth upward, that gives English 
and Spanish poets such an advantage over those of inland countries." 
Herein the great German undoubtedly spoke from his own feelings ; 
for he never saw the sea till he went to Italy in his thirty-eighth year ; 
and " many-sided " as he was, he doubtless would have been a much 
greater and more comprehensive master had he dwelt nearer the ocean 
strand. Francis Horn, in his survey of German literature, alludes to 
this point. " Whatever is indefinite, or seems so, is out of keeping 
with Goethe's whole frame of mind : every thing with him is terra 
jwma or an island : there is nothing of the infinitude of the sea. This 
conviction forced itself upon me, when for the first time, at the north- 
ernmost extremity of Germany, I felt the sweet thrilling produced by 
the highest sublimity of Nature. Here Shakspeare alone comes for- 
ward, whom one finds every where, on mountains and in valleys, in 
forests, by the. side of rivers and of brooks. Thus far Goethe may 
accompany him : but in sight of the sea, Shakspeare is by himself." 
Solger, also dwelling far in the interior, lamented the necessary 
remoteness of a power, habitual converse with which, a chance view 
had assured him, would produce the noblest effects. He is speaking 
of his first sight of the sea : — " Here, for the first time, I felt the 
impression of the illimitable, as produced by an object of sense, in its 
full majesty." 



SCE N E i: V A X I) M I N l>. 29 

Allien accustomed himself to lonely walks on the wild sea-shore 
near Marseilles, and those local influences -axe a perpetual tone and 
energy 1" his mind. Every evening, after plunging in Neptune's 
domain, he would retreal t<> a recess where the land jutted out, and 
there \\'>uld he sit, Leaning asrainsl a high rock which concealed from 
his sighl the land behind him, while before and around he beheld 
nothing but the sea and the heavens. 

•• Blue roll'd tie waters, blue the sky 
Spread like an ocean hung on high." 

The sun, sinking into the waves, was lighting up and embellishing 
these two immensities; and there he passed many an hour in auspicious 
rumination and mental joy. Happy are they who love the scenl of 
wild flowers in solitary woods, and with equal gladness listen to the 
melody. of waters a- they die along the smooth beach., or crash in 
thunders againsl the craggy coast. Thrice happy are the ardent wor- 
shipers at some mountain-shrine, whence they may contemplate a 
scene like this under "the opening eye-lids of the morn," or when the 
hold outlines of great Nature's temple are thrown into line relief 
against a sky crimsoned with sunset lines. The rising of day at sea, 
and descending day on the hills, are the most sublime and suggestive 
scenes man can view. The sun marries earth and ocean in harmony 
full of heavenly awe. This w felt at evening, when there is no filmy 
haze to break the softness of the west, where golden rays spread 
gently through the highest ether, and all is blended over the vasl and 
glowing concave; or when in lurid splendor he glides from peak to 
peak, hi- rays flashed and reflected from cloud to cloud, a- he sinks 
from hill to hill, presaging coming storms. Not less fascinating is the 
magic of light on blue unruffled waters sleeping undisturbed at early 



30 SCENERY AND MIND. 

dawn, or gently curling their rippling surface to catch the dancing 
sunbeams and reflect their mimic glories. To one standing on earth, 
the god of day appears with weary pace to seek repose ; but at sea, 
he rises all fresh and glowing from his briny couch, not in softened 
beauty, but full of dazzling splendor, bursting at once across the 
threshold of the deep, with the firm and conscious step of immortal 
youth. Then, earth, air, and sky, are all in unison, and their calm 
snUiine repose is rapture to the grandest souls. With Beattie's Min- 
strel, they are ready to exclaim, 

" Ob, how canst tliou renounce the boundless store 

Of charms which Nature to her votary yields ! 
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, 

The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ; 
All that the genial ray of morning gilds, 

And all that echoes to the song of even, 
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, 

And all the dread magnificence of heaven. 
Oh, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ! " 



Lakes, abo, have a marked influence on mind. Switzerland has 
ever been a favorite resort for those who are rich in native endowment, 
and whose l>est wealth is elicited by contact with natural greatness. 
The most tumultuous spirits have greatest need of repose, and with 
keenest relish enjoy the placid and quiet feelings which belong pecu- 
liarly to a lake — " as a body of still water under the influence of no 
current; reflecting therefore the clouds, the light, and all the imagery 
of the sky and surrounding hills ; expressing also and making visible 
the changes of the atmosphere, and motions of the lightest breeze, 
and subject to agitation only from the winds — 



S C K \ E K V A \ n MIND. ;; 1 

" The \ isible s< m 
W ould enter unawares int.. hi- mind 
"With all lis solemn imagery, its rocks, 
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received 
Into ill.- bosom of Hi.- sir, i, I ii lake ' " 

One cannot easily walk unmoved where water, fresh from moun- 
tain-springs, "doth makesweel music with th' enameU'd stones," an.! 
verdant islands Boat far out on a surface resembling molten silver, 
thus affording the mosl enchanting objects to the excursive view 
Around this central mirror, prone to the dazzling sun, [el shrubbery 
and trees wave to ,1,,. touch of zephyrs, terraces display their tan-led 
beauties, fields and gardens, studded with elegant villas, swell towards 
bleak hills, surmounted by peerless and brilliant Alps, all magnificently 
repeated in the limpid wave below, and you have the bright summer 
scene which glows from th. I,.,.,,,, of Leman in the foreground of 
-Mont Blanc, and renders supremely beautiful the sacred solitude so 
delightful at Lucerne. Watt botanized on the fragrant hanks ,,f Loch 
Lomond, and fortified his severer studies by the rugged majesty of ,1,,. 
Grampians. Haller, Zimmermann, ami Lavater, sunk manj a sorrow 
in the lake around Zurich, and Gibbon wrought out his mighty task 
under the Lofty inspiration enjoyed at Lausanne. The product and 
proof of this potency are signalized in the memorable passage, where 
be describes the close of his vast undertaking: -1 have presumed to 
mark the momenl of conception, (amid the rains of Eome) ; I shall 
now commemorate the hour of „n final deliverance. It was on the 
day, or rather night, of the 2?th June, L787, between the hours of 
eleven .and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a 
summer-house in my garden. After laying down m\ pen, I took 
several turns i„ a covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospeel 



.".'_> SCENERY AND i\l I N D . 

of tlie country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, 
the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected upon the 
w .iters, and all Nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emo- 
tions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establish- 
ment of my fame." 

Fountains, brooks, and rivers, impart some of the fairest aspects to 
the landscape, and stamp many valuable impressions on the mind. If 
the sea most abounds in that salt which seasons substantial and endur- 
ing thought, those streams, however small, which connect the remotest 
island therewith, are not entirely devoid of like power. It would 
seem that a sagacious love of nature was the true Egeria who taught 
wisdom to Numa in the grotto. When he worshiped the nymph at 
the fountain, and Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection in the 
water, they appear to have made that element necessary in the loves 
of all minds tenderly or profoundly moved. Petrarch sung of it at 
the source of the Sorgue, Vaucluse, and by the rushing Rhone at 
Avignon. Rousseau celebrated its inspiring influence in the rural 
haunts he most loved ; and Byron prolonged the strain over almost 
every renowned sea, lake, river, and fountain of the world. " Where 
a spring rises or a river flows, 1 ' said Seneca, " there should we build 
altars and offer sacrifices," — an impulse which has been felt by the best 
hearts of every age. A thousand charms gather around one of those 
little currents of " loosened silver" that sing along the mossy channel, 
or leap down craggy heights, over which trees throw their protecting 
arms and imbibe grateful spray. How invigorating, with angle and 
book, or all alone with one's own thoughts, to trace the wild but glad- 
some offspring of the hills, now contracted by gloomy firs and half lost 
in dark ravines, — now sparkling from the deepest shadow, broken 
into dimples and bounding to the sun, — auon sweeping wild flowers to 
its bosom, and with augmented wave washing the gnarled and spread- 



SCE \ i: i: v a n D Mia i>. 

bag roots which jul <»ut here and there from impending banks, -with 
fringes of dripping weeds, and finally losing its tributary beautj in 
a mightier stream. " Laugh of the Mountain," is the title given to a 
brook by a Spanish poel ; and Bryanl is not less happy in character- 
izing this fair feature of the world. 

'• The rivulet 
Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed 
Of pehblj sands, or leaping down the rod . 
Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice 
In its own being." 

The chief rivers of every clime have ever furnished the favorite 
themes of leading minds. Darius was so charmed with the river 
Teams, that lie commemorated his attachment by erecting a votive 
column on its brink. Where rolled Ilyssus, was the besl school 
of Athens; and on the shores of Arno and Cam, Milton acquired his 
best training and enjoyed the happiesl life ; as did Thompson, thrilled 
with the murmurs of the Jed. The philosophers of Shiraz composed 
their nio-l celebrated works near the shores of the Rochnabad ; while 
by the sacred Ganges, near Benares, erudite teachers instruct their 
pupils, after the manner of Plato, walking in their gardens. Aufidus, 
the Tiber, and the l'o, had their respective admirers in Horace, Virgil, 
and Ovid, and the reader need not he told that all tongues unite 
to celebrate the Rhine. Calimachus lias immortalized the beautiful 
waters of the [nachus, while the Mincio and the Tagus boasl their 
Boccacio and Camoens; and the lovers of English letters know full 
well that tli.' Severn, Trent, Avon, Derwent, Dee, and Thames, have 
been distinguished by the praises of the mightiesl pens. 

Modern literature, the production of northern regions, is imbued 
with a wild and romantic element strongly distinguished from the 

:. 



34 SCENERY AND MIND. 

severe simplicity of the classic south. This contrast has its counter- 
part, and much of its producing cause, iu the characteristic scenery 
of its origin. In old Greece, the lovely climate, hud just vicissitudes 
enough to impress a happy variety on- the experience and coinage of 
mind; while their free institutions, and the deep wisdom of their phi- 
losophers, conduced towards the production of those imperishable 
monuments of grandeur and beauty before which the genius of 
humanity still reverently bends. But England, and the kindred 
regions of Germany, have in their less favored climates a depth of 
gloom which is known to characterize the northern spirit, in which 
external nature is admirably harmonious with the intellectual struc- 
ture, by its influence thereupon eliciting the noblest efforts. The 
literature of a country is truly national, just so far as it bears upon 
it the stamp of national character. Among the external causes which 
tend to create this exalted type of individuality, natural scenery and 
climate are undoubtedly the most obvious. The features of their 
native landscape give form and color to the thoughts and words of 
all creative minds. For instance, through the living speech, and over 
the speaking page of the Anglo-Saxon, and Anglo-American race, one 
can easily recognize the daily vicissitudes and fluctuating seasons, — 
those tints and hues of vernal beauty, summer promise, autumnal 
wealth, and wintry desolation, — those dimly shrouding mists which 
alternate with brilliant light, — and which render objects more lovely 
and harmonious to those who realize the invisible and perceive the 
spiritual, who unite all worlds in the comprehensive grasp of their 
imagination, and thus substantiate in effective use that which to others 
is only shadowy and remote. 

As is the scenery, so are national letters and works of art. We 
children of mists, clouds, woods, darkening tempests, and weeping 
rain, produce and prefer the beauty of mystery and indeflniteness, in 



SCE \ K B Y A N D M I N 1>. 35 

other words, romantic beauty. If we would cultivate a keen pleasure 

in definite beauty, as it is seen in Homeric literature, and as it s1 1 

mightily exemplified in the severely gorgeous splendor of the Acropo- 
lis, we must transport cur mind at Least, it' not our person, toother 
clinics. There we may best emulate the consummate excellence which 
result- from the coalescence of alacrity with depth, and which was 
most happily impressed upon the language Plato spoke, and in the 
symmetry which still survives in the fragmentary Propylsea and 
Olympeion. But if we would behold at once combined the definite 
beauty, shapely vastness, instantaneously recognized unity, and cheer- 
ful grandeur, most characteristic of the scenery, literature, and art of 
an immortal land, let us for a moment glance at the magnificent pano- 
rama, as seen from the lofty terrace through the golden-hued colon- 
nades of the Parthenon. Linger here a while till the eye becomes 
accustomed to the scene, and imagination is able to refit the mutilated 
forms, and you will easily understand the spirit of the old religion, 
and its consecrated works. "There is no mixture of light ami shade, 
no half-concealing, half-revealing, as in the symbolical cathedral- of 
the Christian faith. There are no rays of divine darkness running 
alongside of the ravs of light, and sinking into the ground beneath 
the altar of the East. All i- open to the unbounded blue ether above 
and the vertical rays of a noonday sun, and the trembling visitations 
of the unimpeded moonbeams, a very house of light, unstained by 
painted glass, undarkened by vaulted roofs, unintercepted by columns 
and arcades, and with the instantaneous perception of unity unmarred 
by the cruciform shape." Who can ever forget the electrical effect 
produced when firsl beholding the blue sky between the columns of a 
classic ruin I The shape, the tallness, which makes the space seem 
narrow, tie' straight hard line which renders the perfed contour so 
definite, all startle the eye with its firm and stable symmetry, even 



36 SCESERY AND MIND. 

after one has been long accustomed to the reverently swerving lines 
of a cathedral, and to the hold and trustful curve of the Gothic arch, 
throwing itself from pillar to pillar, with its segmental circle, like the 
unfolding of Christian truth here below, whose perfect whole is in 
heaven. 

The mental creations of central Europe, and the still more roman- 
tic regions of the north, are equally characterized by an indefiniteness 
exactly comporting with the aspects and temperature of the material 
kingdoms around. The human soul, thirsting after immensity, immu- 
tability, and unbounded duration, needs some tangible object from 
which to take its night, — some point whence to soar from the present 
into the future, from the limited to the infinite, — and is likely to be 
most vigorous in its capacity and productions where such facilities 
most abound. Mere space, contemplated under the dome of heaven, 
prostrates, rather than sustains, the mind; but Alpine heights, seen at 
a glance where earth and sky mingle, constitute the quickening and 
fortifying regions where mundane understanding and celestial imagi- 
nation most happily blend in the suggestion of thoughts such as com- 
mon language never expressed. Deep caverns, contracted lakes, pro- 
jecting crags, impending avalanches, and glittering pinnacles, which 
rise in serene majesty till they are lost in mist and cloud, rolling over 
their summits like the waves of ocean, realize prospects which seem to 
conduct the contemplator from this to another world. The magnifi- 
cence thus poured on the mind naturally imbues its faculties, and will 
be reproduced in living speech, or for ever glow from a graphic pen. 
The solitude seems holy where every grand feature constitutes a 
hymn, and a sublime melancholy impresses itself upon the thoughtful 
soul. 

Northern legends and apparitions partake much more of the 
spiritual and infinite than did the sylvan deities and semi-human 



>< E \ E i: v \ \ d u i \ i>. 37 

mythology of the classic South; and modem romance, with its pre- 
vailing gloom and indefinite character, is much more appalling than 
the sunny and social personifications which antiquity produced. The 
natural phenomena which abound in a wild, uncultivated country, 
powerfully conspire to create the illusions of fancy which so much 
modify reason's severesl works. The preternatural appearances com- 
monly said tn occui' in the German mountains and Scottish highlands, 
whose loft] summits and unreclaimed valley- arc shrouded with tem- 
pestuous clouds, may be explained on the same philosophical principle, 
whence the most potent local inspiration is derived. That which is 
strongly felt, is no1 onhj easilj -ecu, but as easily believed; and an 
appetite for the marvellous, constantly excited, is made keen to cl 
and multiply visions and prognostics, until each heath or glen has its 
unearthly visitants, each familj if- omen, each but its boding spectre, 
and superstition, systematized into a science, is expounded by wizards 
and gifted seers. The character of a primitive mythology, mingling 
more or less with the best literature of a nation, is always intimateh 
connected with that of the scenerj and climate in which it arose. 
Thus the graceful Nymphs and Naiads of Greece ; the Peris of Persia, 
gay as the colors of the rainbow, and odorous as flowers; the Fairies 
of England, who in airy circles "dance their ringlets to the whistling: 
wind," have forms and functions delicate and beautiful, like the coun- 
tries in which they dwell; while "the Elves, Bogles, Brownies, and 
Kelpies, which seem to have legitimately descended, in ancient High- 
land verse, from the Scandina\ ian Dvergar, Nisser, &c, are of a stunted 
and malignant aspect, and are celebrated for nothing better than 
maiming cattle, bewildering the benighted traveller, and conjuring ou1 
the souls of newborn infants." 

Ji is an occasion lor special gratitude to God thai there are yel 
wild spots and wildernesses left, unstained fountains and virgin hills. 



38 SCENERY AND MIND. 

where avarice has little dominion, and whence thought may take the 
widest range. These exercise analogous power over the popular mind, 
furnish the purest stimulus to noble exertion, and have ever developed 
the strongest patriotism, iutensest energy, and most valuable letters of 
the world. So far as we can derive capacities from inanimate things, 
and be impelled by the activities which depend on place, mountains, 
moors, forests and rocky shores, are the localities most favorable for 
vigorous and prolific life. The language we speak, and the glorious 
Literature it has preserved, are the accumulated products and historical 
proof of this. When the Saxons were called in as friends and allies 
by the Romanized Britons, they assembled in great numbers with their 
king Hengist, during the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era, 
and England continued to be peopled by them. But instead of friends 
they soon became masters, and the ancient inhabitants, the Britons, 
disappeared; after which, the Saxon tongue, laws, government, and 
manners soon overspread the land; so that it may literally be said, 
" the British constitution came out of the woods of Germany." 

The real and ideal are most closely allied in the grandest creations 
of nature and the finest conceptions of mind. Although hoary dill's 
and soaring heights are among the most palpable facts of earth, it is 
on them that we always seem to be most in the domain of fancy. It 
is impossible to overstate our indebtedness to those gigantic disturban- 
ces of the solid globe, by which mountains, with all their accompani- 
ments of wild and rugged features, were upheaved, and substituted, in 
bold and picturesque beauty, for dead level plains. Without this 
contrast of expressive objects, earth would have told out little of those 
sublime truths, of which now every hill is a prophet, every stone a 
book. The ancients frequently erected temples and statues to the 
genius of the place; and these were often in retired localities, like 
Iero, the sacred city of ^Esculapius, occupying a mountain-hollow, the 



SCENE El IND MI N 1). 39 

most secluded in Greece. According to Pliny, Ms countrymen, too, 
fell thai Minerva, as well as Diana, inhabits the forests. Among the 
woods of Etruria, the ereal lawgiver and ruler to whom Koine was 
midcr greater obligations than to Romulus, soughl refuge from the 
cares thai attended the government of a turbulent but growing nation, 
and was the Qrsl pagan sovereign ever inspired to ered a fane to Peace 
and Faith. Akenside finely allude- to the sacred awe, with which the 
wilderness and hidden dells, stretching along the acclivities of a high 
mountain, are contemplated by persons of refined imagination : 

" Marl: the sable w Is, 

Thai shade sublime von mountain's nodding brow. 
With what religious awe the solemn scene 
Commands your steps! as it' the reverend form 
< >i" Minos, or of Numa, should forsake 
TV Elysian seats; and down the embowering glade 
Move to your pausing ej e." 



When we meditate in plains, the globe appears youthful and 
imbecile; among crags and mountains, it exhibits energy and the 
gravity of age. All primitive aspects indicate a deep solemnity, and 
generate invincible power. We feel the spirit of the universe upon 
us, and are not surprised that when the shepherd in Virgil sought 
Love, he found him a native of the rocks. Traces of the divinity 
mosl abound in localities apart from throngs of mankind, where one 
can besl establish the equilibrium of the soul by that of solitude, feel- 
ing a life on the surface of things and eternity in their depths. Nature 
Bheds much of a supernatural influence around the superior soul>, con- 
stituted in harmony with herself. Physical elements become photic in 
the hands of such, and receive an impression not less brilliant than 



40 SCENERY AND MIND. 

enduring. Their mind is made to act as a prism, under whose influence 
the simplest elements assume the most exquisite combination of hues ; 
and thus inanimate kingdoms and artificial lessons are converted into 
golden visions of thought and feeling. Form, color, light and shade 
are attendant handmaids, ever ready to impart a graceful and peren- 
nial utterance to the sublimest conceptions, and adorn rugged strength 
with charms more real and captivating than that of words. 

This is as often verified in art as in literature. Hogarth began life 
'a silver-engraver, Chantry a wood-carver, and Raeburn a goldsmith ; 
but ruled by the love fed in early intercourse with nature, their course 
was changed, and each was matured in his peculiar department of 
excellence. Romney, when but a child, studied coloring before the 
rainbow, the purple perspective and gleaming lake; he took his first 
lessons in composition through wild woods, fruitful valleys, and over 
the loftiest mountains within reach. Mortimer with strongest impulse 
studied the sea, chafed and foaming, fit " to swallow navigation up," 
with ships driven before tempests, or strown in ruin. These, passion- 
ately seen and felt, gave him a skilful artistic hand. Richard Cosway 
was first kindled with a love for painting by a chance glance at two 
picturesque works from Rubens, at Tiverton; and a beautiful piece of 
wood is still shown in Suffolk, where the ancient trees, winding glades, 
and sunny nooks, inspired Gainsborough with the love of art. Thence 
he emerged the first landscape painter of his age. A few prints, illus- 
trative of Michael Angelo's genius, found in his father's library, and 
conned beneath gnarled oaks, made the enthusiastic Fusili a master in 
his way ; and a perusal of " The Jesuit's Perspective," when only eight 
years old, led an observant youth into the open fields, and prepared 
the way for Sir- Joshua Reynolds to become the highest model and 
most elegant teacher of British art. It is well known that Salvator 
Rosa once resided with a band of robbers, and that the impressions 



SCENE R"X A \ |i MIND. I I 

received from the rocks, caves, .lens, and mountains they inhabited, 
gave a decided tone and direction to his taste. His original benl was 
thus so stronglj developed, thai he loved rather to stand on the ruins 
of nature, than to admire her sof! and beautiful combinations; Inner 
his imagination became daring and impetuous, his pencil rugged and 
sublime, from prolific sources armed to throw a savage grandeur over 
all his works. Claude Lorrain, on the contrary, spent his happiesl 
days in sunny scene-, w here the earth was enamelled with flowers, and 
heaven's mild radiance beamed perpetually on his brow. He early 
learned to mix a pallet of colors from every realm of beauty, and all 
his pictures teem with loveliness and peace. 

In a fine picture, as in a favorite book, it is easy to identify what 
we behold -with the life of the author; and probably we shall trace 
his first impressions in the peculiarity of his style, as well as in the 
genera] tenor of his thoughts. Milton found his mosl genial inspira- 
tion amidst the embowered lawns of Vallombrosa ; Gray was perma- 
nently benefited b\ the solitude of the Chartreuse; and Johnson 
never rose higher in refined sentiment, than on the sea-beaten rock of 
Iona. To the ,-reat bard of Paradise Lost, nature ever imparted a 
clear and steady light, shining brightly through the storms of tumul- 
tuous life, ami kindling up, when all else was dark, a lustre worth} of 
Eden in it- iir-t bl< 1. Shakspeare possessed the most intense fond- 
ness for natural beauty, and displayed it in all his works. " [mages of 
rural scenes are for ever floating on his mind, and there is scarce an 
object, from the lofty mountain to the sequestered valley, from the 

• lark tempesl to the -ray dawn and placid n dight, from dreary 

wdnter to warm and fragranl spring, that lie has not depicted ; gentle 
••"is. and murmuring rills, and sequestered groves, are feature- as 

prominent in his dramas, as the beings that haunt them; the VOWS 
of love become indeed silver -oft as they are whispered by nighl 



42 SCENERY AND MIND. 

among pomegranate groves ; life is more sweet among trees, and 
stones, and running brooks, afar from public haunts; the gentle boy 
sleeps more fitly among embowering woods, watched by fairy forms, 
and sung to rest by the dirge of affection." Like Milton, Shakspeare 
seems to have dwelt with sincerest pleasure on the peaceful images of 
rural life, and no one familiar with his history and thoughts can be 
surprised that, as soon as he was enabled to escape frorn the artificial- 
ness of metropolitan life, he hastened to spend the evening of his 
existence among the quiet hills and vales where in careless youth he 
had wandered, gathering innumerable germs of the richest and most 
magnificent thoughts. Sir Walter Scott's great art lay in exact de- 
scriptions of nature and of character, a facility attained by the con- 
stant pursuit of some piece of striking scenery, or in watching the 
spontaneous exhibition of unsophisticated character. Fancy was re- 
sorted to only for filling up the interstices, or supplying vacancies in 
the originals which nature furnished. In youth, he read Hool's Tasso 
and Percy's Reliques of ancient poetry, beneath a huge platamis tree, 
within the ruins of an old arbor near Kelso, the most beautiful and 
romantic village in Scotland. In full view lay the Tweed and the 
Teviot, both famous rivers, the ancient castles of Roxburgh and a 
ruined abbey, with the modern mansion of Fleurs, a landscape so 
situated as to combine the ideas of ancient baronial splendor with 
those of modern taste. These were vividly associated with the grand 
features of the scene around the young observer; and the historical 
incidents, or traditional legends connected with them, gave to his im- 
passioned soul an intense reverence for ancient ruins and chivalrous 
enterprise. Thenceforth his faculties were all awake, and fitted for 
their work; giving to every field its battle, and to every rivulet its 
song. A true man's productions everywhere are the types of his 
mind, and reveal the scenes and circumstances of his early training. 



SOENEKI \ N n MIND. I:'. 

Edmund Burke grew up encompassed bj the gorgeous scenery around 
flu- castle of Kjlcolnian: and bis great living: successor in Parliament, 

Sheil,* gathered the besl energies of his eloquence near the fine w Is 

of Faithley, and the aoble seal of the Bolton family, when the sullen 
roar of the ocean used to come over the hills to greel hi> youth, under 
the shadow of Dunbrodj Abbey in ruins, where the Nbre and the 
Barrow met in a deep and splendid conflux with his uative Suir. The 
minds of these great men were the transcripts of the first scenes thej 
loved; and it is most pertinent to this theme to remind the reader 
that one, perhaps greater than they, the master statesman and orator 
of his age, was cradled in the rugged bosom of Alpine New Hamp- 
shire, where all is cool, colossal, sublime. 

On a flowery morning of spring, or in the stillness of a clear au- 
tumnal night, — in summer fruitfulness or wintry desolation, — we feel, 
if we do not hear, the rusldng of that stream of life, which from Orion 
flows down to the very heart of earth. Hence the declaration of 
Burns, — " There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more — I do 
not know how I should call it pleasure — but something which exalts 
me something "which enraptures m< — than to walk in the sheltered 
side of the wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter-day, and bear 
the storm}' wind howling among the trees, and roaring over the plain. 
It is my best season for devotion." Campbell, too, courted the 
heath-clad wilderness — "bleat — lifeless — and broken into numberless 
glens — strewn with rocks — and scantily clothed with copse-wood ; 
from the duskj coveii of which he could observe the wild deer darting 
forth at interval- and again vanishing in a deeper and more distanl 
shade. Bold rocks, fringed with wild flowers, rising in huge and often 
grotesque masses through the purple heath: streams and torrents 

* While thi Qg through the press, news is received of the death of this 

eminent man. 



II S C E X E K Y A N L> MIND. 

w inding peacefully through tlie deep grassy glens, or dashing, in clouds 
of spray, over sonic rugged precipice ; the shrill pipe of the curlew — 
the blithe carol of the lark over head — the bleating of the goats from 
the steep pastoral acclivities — the scream of the eagle from his eyrie 
in the rocks:" — these were the sights and sounds which enlivened his 
rambles and supplied his worth. The youth of Byron was spent 
mainly on the sea-shore, the heaths, and the hills, of the Doric north ; 
and when more secluded in Newstead Abbey, the recollections of 
childhood moulded his first sonff. 

o 

" When I roved, a young highlander, o'er the dark heath, 
Am] climb'd thy steep summit, Morven! of snow; 
To gaze on the torrent that thunder'd beneath, 
Or the mist of the tempest thai gather'd below." 

Gladsome wanderings in the sunshine among the hills, enlivened 
by melodious waters and the song of birds, the changeful aspects of 
fields and woods, gleamings of the far-off sea, and mountains piercing 
through clouds a pathway to the skies, — this is the paradise of all 
minds nobly endowed, and not yet entirely debased. It is when thus 
environed and exercised that lofty impulses are kindled in genial blood. 
Thus was felt and expressed the grandeur, beauty, pathos, dazzling 
light and freezing gloom which mingled in the memories of Childe 
Harold. He had profoundly experienced the truth that, 

" To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been; 
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 
With the wild flock that never Deeds a fold; 
Alone o'er steeds and foaming falls to lean ; 
This is not solitude; 'tis hut to hold 
Converse with Nature's charms, and view uei stores unroll'd." 



SCE N i: R"5 \ \ i> MIND. I .", 

We have purposely avoided copious reference to American 
scenery, artists and authors, as corroborative of the positions assumed 
in the foregoing disquisition. We know something of the pictorial 
illustrations so admirably executed for this work, and would gladh 
allude to the diversified aspects characteristic of art, literature, and 
scenery in our land. But that department has been assigned to other 
and abler pens. Our specific task will conclude with a remark or two 
on the relation which nature sustain- to religion, as an auxiliary in the 
highesl culture of mind. 

What scene is more simple, or more sublime, than the vast solitude 
of untainted nature, cast in a fresh yet giant mould, a silent and mightj 
temple of the great God, wherein the pure spirit of love reigns and 
smile-- over all \ Pilgrimages were made to the oaks of Mamre, near 
Elebron, from the time of Abraham to that of Constantine ; and the 
nations surrounding the divinely favored tribes conspired to attach the 
idea of veneration to rivers and fountains, and were accustomed not, 
onl\ to dedicate trees and groves to their deities, hut ever to sacrifice 
on high mountains: customs which wrvc practised l>y the .lews them- 
selves, previous to the building of Solomon's temple. 'Hie beginning 
of wisdom was among the wilds of Asia, audit was there that the God 
of nature implanted grand ideas in the minds of shepherds meditating 
on those antique plains and heights, teaching them to wonder and 
adore. As the loftiest mountains are surmounted with unsullied snow, 
so th.' puresl sentiments crowned their exalted souls, and for ever ren- 
dered them the chief source of fertilizing streams to all lands, through 
every region of thought. \ 

A httlc child standing under the heaven bright with stars, once 

asked its mother,— " Dear mother, are those yonder tl pen places, 

which the glorj of God shines through \ " Those were the,, Id heavens 

which infancj admired, and tlie\ yet proclaim the glorj of their 



46 - C E N EE V A N 1> M 1 N I). 

Maker to the most matured. The bills, the vales, and the ocean, have 
never grown old, but still have wonders as innumerable as they are 
lasting. Not a realm of nature is unfolded to our gaze that does not 
teem -with beauties and sublimities bearing an antiquity more ancient 
than the pyramids. The evening breeze is yet redolent of the balm 
shed over Canaan, when Isaac went tbrtb to meditate. Zion's bill has 
Burvived its temple, and lifts its sacred brow to the same sun that 
shone upon Thermopylae, and is swept by the same wind which laid 
the armaments of Xerxes low. The rainbow we to-day admire, is the 
same that was bent near the portal of the Ark; and the mighty rivers 
of America boar with their billows a murmur kindred to the Nile, as 
it moved the bulrushes o\' Egypt iu which the child Moses nestled, 
watched over by the sisterly love of Miriam. 

To bob men of the earlier times, the exterior and interior life were 
brought into perfect harmony, so as to produce that expansion of heart 
which is the real cause that makes rural existence so dehghtful to men 
of good will: for so sweel is it to them, that " they whose verse of 
yore the golden age recorded, and its bliss on the Parnassian moun- 
tain," seem to have foreseen it in Arcadian dreams. They loved clear 
waters, aspiring bills, with all the countless forms and tones which 
each returning spring reproduced more fair than ever to their growing 
appreciation. Nature prompted purifying tears in their eyes, that 
they might trace the goodness of their God in these bis lower works, 
wondering not that the Samaritan woman should have recognized and 
confessed the Messiah at the fountain, whom Jewish sages knew not in 
the temple. The fields and level shores were by them connected with 
religious mysteries; for. ,Ies U s standing by the lake of Genesareth 
when the multitude pressed upon him, the two boats afloat and the 
occupation of the fishermen, together with the walk through the corn 
with the disciples on the Sabbath, were designed to make such an 



- I E \ E RY AND MIND. 17 

impression, thai one should never enjoy the beauties of nature, or the 
recreations of a country life, withoul being reminded of the blessed 
Redeemer. Bui mountains are especially associated with religion 
through the remembrance of thai mounl whose name has given a 
universal fame to the pale verdure of the olive, from that of Tabor, 
and Sinai, and Ephraim, which fed the holj Samuel. We read in the 
Iliad that Hector sacrificed on tin- top of Ma: ami the summits of 
mountains were ever selected, not only bj the Greeks, bu1 by nations 
taughl direct from heaven, a- tin- mosl appropriate situations whereon 
their altars should stand. It was on mountains thai the only true God 
manifested himself to the Hebrews of old, and i1 was on them thai the 
tremendous mysteries of redemption were accomplished. Connected 
with these grand objects, and in no small measure by them inspired, 
was tin' mighty energy which sent the apostle Paul to Mais Hill, 
preaching Jesus and the resurrection ; ami long afterwards, in a feebler 
degree, impelled Edward Erving to roll " the rich thunders of hi- aw t'ul 
voice," wh.-re mute thousands stood enraptured amid the glories of the 
Frith of Forth. 

Persons accustomed to explore the ruins of religious houses in Eng- 
land, and the seenei\ peculiar to each, will often lie struck with the 

fact that the several orders consulted their highest happiness, as well 
a- greatesl good, in fixing the site of their respective foundations. 
Evidently, mere convenience, or retirement, was not their chief aim; 

the\ f.lt that spiritual culture would be most auspicious, where natural 
charm- mosl ahound. Thej believed that in the shrine- which Jeho- 
vah had adorned with the clearest impress of his own attributes, and 
in which he had bidden nature contribute her richest gifts, — the 
glittering gems of her mineral stores, the fairest fold- of her tinted 
drapery, tin- delicate tracery of her interlacing boughs, the incense of 
her breathing flowers, the music of her gentlesl zephyr-, her sighing 



48 SCEKEET AKD MIND. 

foliage, chanting birds, and gliding waters, — they also could most 
suitably offer adoration. Quiet nooks, shut in by the curving river, as 
Kirkstall ; rocky banks, encompassed with verdant foliage, as Foun- 
tains ; umbrageous and sequestered sea-coasts, as Netley ; green plots 
of smooth sward, traversed by some wild, romantic stream, asTintcrn; 
cool and solitary valleys, as Furness ; lovely shores, where the swift 
brook sparkles and bounds to the deep, as Beaulieu ;• — such were the 
Ik imcs the early Christians loved. And they had their reward. Their 
persons, their names, and the distinguishing features of their creeds, 
true and false, have mainly passed away, but the scenes of their earthly 
devotions are treasured by all the good. Still we visit their ruins, to 
mourn over their departed glories ; " and still they live in fame, though 
not in lii'e. , ' We may not adopt the theology of those devout build- 
ers, but it would be well for us to emulate their taste, knowing that 
while all sublunary things are transient, "a thing of beauty is a joy 
for ever ! " 

The enthusiastic painter, Gainsborough, exclaimed on his death- 
bed, — "We are all going to heaven, and Vandyke will be of the 
party." May the reader be imbued with something more divine than 
mere taste, that he may survive anguish or ecstasy in the energies of 
faith ; and, soaring amid the infinite glories of the universe, at each 
remove imbibing majestic charms of every hue and form, may he for 
ever realize the high significancy of our theme, — Sceneey and Mind. 



X I E W N E A R M N I) OUT. 

(ill: NT I N G TON.) 

The village of Rondout, founded in 1808, by the Delaware and 
Hudson ('anal Company, is situated near the Walkil] Creels on the 
Hudson, about ninety miles above the city of New-York, and two 
miles distant from Eddyville, where that Canal terminates. 

In the effective and mellow little picture from which our engrav- 
ing is taken, Mr. Huntington has pleasingly represented a secluded 
and romantic nook on the creek, near its entrance to the Hudson. 
In the background is a glimpse of the Catskill mountains. The 
picture is one of a pair belonging to Gen. John A. Dix, and is one 
of flie happiest efforts of the artist in this department, especially in 
its coloring. 



AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY COMPARED. 

BY J . FENIMORE COOPER. 

Eh ert intellectual being has a longing to sec distant lands. We 
desire t<> ascertain, by actual observation, the peculiarities of nation-, 
the differences which exist between the stranger and ourselves, and as 
it might be all that lies beyond our daily experience. This feeling 
seems implanted in our nature, and few who possess the means of 
doing so fail to gratify it. Every day increases the amount of the 
intercourse between the people of different countries, and the happiesl 
results may be anticipated from this fusion of nations and the hu- 
manizing influences which are its consequences. Those, however, who 
are forbidden by circumstances to extend their personal observations 
beyond the limits of their own homes, musl be content to derive 
their information on such subjects from the pen, the pencil, and the 
graver. 

We understand it to be the design of this work to aid in impart- 
ing a portion of the intelligence, necessary to appease these cravings 

of our nature, and to equalize, as it might be, the knowledge of men 
and things. Our own task is very simple. It will lie confined to 



52 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 

showing some of the leading peculiarities of tlie scenery of various 
nations, and to direct the attention of the reader to the minor circum- 
stances which give character to the landscape, hut which are seldom 
alluded to by the writers of graver works. 

The great distinction between American and European scenery, as 
a whole, is to be found in the greater want of finish in the former than 
in the latter, and to the greater superfluity of works of art in the 
old world than in the new. Nature has certainly made some dif- 
ferences, though there are large portions of continental Europe that, 
without their artificial accessories, might well pass for districts iu our 
own region; and which forcibly remind the traveller of his native 
home. As a whole, it must be admitted that Europe offers to the 
senses sublimer views and certainly grander, than are to be found 
within our own holders, unless we resort to the Rocky Mountains, and 
the ranges hi California and New Mexico. 

In musing on these subjects, the mind of the untravelled American 
naturally turns first towards England. He has pictured to himself 
landscapes and scenery on which are impressed the teeming history 
of the past. We shall endeavor to point out the leading distinc- 
tions between the scenery of England and that of America, therefore, 
as the course that will probably be most acceptable to the reader. 

The prevalent characteristic of the English landscape is its air of 
snugness and comfort. In these respects it differs entirely from its 
neighbor, France. The English, no doubt, have a great deal of 
poverty and squalid misery among them. But it is kept surpris- 
ingly out of the ordinary view. Most of it, indeed, is to be found in 
the towns, and even in them it is concealed in out of the way places 
and streets seldom entered by the stranger. 

There are places in America, more especially in the vicinities of 
the large towns, that have a strong resemblance to the more crowded 



A M E I! I A N A N !> E BOP E A N SC E N E U Y. 

portions of England, though the hedge is usually wanting and the 
stone wall is more in favor among ourselves than it appears ever to 
have been among our ancestors. The great abundance of wood, in 
this countiy, too, gives us the rail and the hoard for our fences, objects 
which the lovers of the picturesque would gladly see supplanted by 
the brier and the thorn. All thai part of Staten [sland, which lies 
nearest to the quarantine ground, has a marked resemblance to whal 
we should term suburban English landscape. The neighborhoods of 
most of the < >1< 1 towns in the northern States, have more or less of the 
same character ; it being natural that the descendants of Englishmen 
should have preserved as many of the usages of their forefathers as 
was practicable. We know of no portion of this country that bears 
an\ marked resemblance to the prevalent characteristics of an ordi- 
nary French landscape. In France there are two great distinctive 
features that seem to divide the materials of the views between them. 
One is that of a bald nakedness of formal grandes routes, systematically 
lined with tree-, a total absence of farm-houses, fences, hedges, and walls, 
little or no forest, except in particular places, scarcely any pieces of 
detached woods, and a husbandry that is remarkable for its stiffness 
and formality. The fields of a French acclivity, when the grain is 
ripe, or ripening, haveastrong resemblance to an ordinary Manchester 
pattern-card, in which the different cloths, varying in color, are placed 
under the eye at one glance. The effect of this is not pleasing. The 
lines being straight and the fields exhibiting none of the freedom of 
nature. Stiffness and formality, indeed, impair the beauty of nine- 
tenths of the French landscapes; though as a whole the country is 
considered tine, and is certainly very productive. The other distinc- 
tive feature to which we allude is of a directly contrary character, 
being remarkable for the affluence of its objects. It often occurs in 
that country that the traveller finds himself on a heighl that com- 



54 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 

mands a view of great extent, which is literally covered with b&wrgs 
or small towns and villages. This occurs particularly in Normandy, 
in the vicinity of Paris, and as one approaches the Loire. In such 
places it is no unusual thing for the eye to embrace, as it might be in 
a single view, some forty or fifty cold, gravedooking, chiselled bourgs 
and villages, almost invariably erected in stone. The effect is not un- 
pleasant, for the subdued color of the buildings has a tendency to 
soften the landscape and to render the whole solemn and imposing. 
We can recall many of these scenes that have left indelible impres- 
sions on the mind, and which, if not positively beautiful in a rural 
sense, are very remarkable. That from the heights of Montmorenci, 
near Paris, is one of them ; and there is another, from the hill of St. 
Catharine, near Rouen, that is quite as extraordinary. 

The greater natural freedom that exists in an ordinary American 
landscape, and the abundance of detached fragments of wood, often 
render the views of this country strikingly beautiful when they are 
of sufficient extent to conceal the want of finish in the details, which 
require time and long-continued labor to accomplish. In this par- 
ticular we conceive that the older portions of the United States offer to 
the eye a general outline of view that may well claim to be even of a 
higher cast, than most of the scenery of the old w< >rld. 

There is one great charm, however, that it must be confessed is 
uearly wanting among us. We allude to the coast. Our own is, with 
scarcely an exception, low, monotonous and tame. It wants Alpine 
rocks, bold promontories, visible heights inland, and all those other 
glorious accessories of the sort that render the coast of the Mediter- 
ranean the wonder of the world. It is usual for the American to 
dilate on the size of his bays and rivers, but objects like these require 
corresponding elevation in the land. Admirable as is the bay of 
New- York for the purposes of commerce, it holds but a very subor- 



\Mi:UI<AN \ N D El IKU'KAN SCENERY. 

dinate place as a landscape among the other havens of the world. 
The comparison with Naples that lias so often been made, is singularly 
unjust, there not being two bays of any extent to be found, that are 
really less alike than these. It was never our good fortune to see 
Constantinople or Rio de Janeiro, the two aoblesl and most remarka- 
ble scenes of this kind, as we have understood, known to the traveller. 
But we much question it' either will endure the test of rigid and severe 
examination better than the celebrated Gulf of Napoli. The color of 
the water, alone, is a peculiar beauty of all the .Mediterranean bays : 
it is the blue of the deep sea, carried home to the very rocks of the 
coast. In this respect, the shores of America, also, have less claim to 
beaut} than those of Europe, generally. The waters are green, the 
certain sign of their being shallow. Similar tints prevail in the narrow 
seas between Holland and England. The name of Holland recalls a 
land, however, that is even lower than any portion of our own with 
which we are acquainted. There are large districts in Holland that 
are actually below the level of the high tides of the sea. This country 
is a proof how much time, civilization, and persevering industry, may 
add even to the interest of a landscape. While the tameness of the 
American coast has so little to relieve it or to give it character, in 
Holland it becomes the source of wonder and admiration. The sight 
of vast meadows, villages, farm-houses, churches, and other works of 
art, actually lying below the level of the adjacent canals, and the 
neighboring seas, wakes in the mind a species of reverence for human 
industry. This feeling becomes blended with the views, and it is 
scarcely possible to gaze upon a Dutch landscape without seeing, al 
the same time, ample pages from the history of the country and the 

character of its people. On this side of the ocean, there are no 

such peculiarities. Time, numbers, and labor are yet wanting to 
supply the defects of nature, and we must be content, for a while, 



56 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 

-with the less teeming pictures drawn in our youth and comparative 
simplicity. 

Ou the American coast the prevailing character is less marked at 
the northward and eastward than at the southward. At some future 
day, the Everglades of Florida may have a certain resemblance to 
Holland. They are the lowest land, we believe, in any part of this 
country. 

Taking into the account the climate and its productions, the adja- 
cent mountains, the most picturesque outlines of the lakes, and the 
works of art which embellish the whole, we think that most lovers of 
natural scenery would prefer that around the lakes of Como and Mag- 
giore to that of any other place familiarly known to the traveller. 
Como is ordinarily conceived to carry off the palm in Europe, and it 
is not prol >able that the great mountains of the East or any part of 
the Andes, can assemble as many objects of grandeur, sweetness, mag- 
nificence and art, as are to be found in this region. Of course, our 
own country has nothing of the sort to compare with it. The Rocky 
Mountains, and the other great ranges in the recent accession of terri- 
tory, must possess many noble views, especially as one proceeds south ; 
but the accessories are necessarily wanting, for a union of art and 
nature can alone render scenery perfect. 

In the way of the wild, the terrific, and the grand, nature is suffi- 
cient of herself ; but Niagara is scarcely more imposing than she is 
now rendered lovely by the works of man. It is true that this cele- 
brated cataract has a marked sweetness of expression, if we may use 
such a term, that singularly softens its magnificence, and now that men 
are becoming more familiar with its mysteries, and penetrating into its 
very mists, by means of a small steamboat, — the admirer of nature 
discovers a character different from that which first strikes the senses. 

We regard it as hypercritical to speak of the want of Alpine scenery 



SlMEEICAW AND EUROPEAN SCENEKY. .".7 

around Niagara. On what scale must the mountains be moulded to 
bear a just comparison, in this view of the matter, with the grandeur 
of the rataract! The Alps, the Andes, and the Hinunalaya, would 
scarcely suffice to furnish materials necessary to produce the contrast, 
on any measurement now known to the world. In fact the accessories, 
except as thej arc blended with the Falls themselves, as in the won- 
derful gorge through which the river rushes in an almosl fathomless 

torrent, a- it' frightened a1 its own terrific leap; the Whirl] 1, and 

all that properhj belongs to the stream, from the commencenaenl of 
the Rapids, or, to be more exact, from the placid, lake-like scenery 
above these Rapids, down to the point where the waters of this mighl v 
strait are poured into the bosom of the Ontario, strike ns a- being in 
singular harmony with the views of the Cataract itself. 

The Americans may well boast of their water-falls, and of their 
lakes, notwithstanding the admitted superiority of upper Italv and 
Switzerland in connection with the highest classes of the latter. They 
form objects of interest over a vast surface of territory, ami greatly 
relieve the monotony of the inland views. We do not now allude t,, 
the five greal lakes, which resemble seas ami offer verj much the same 
assemblage of objects to the eye; but to those of greatly inferior 
extent, that are sparkling over so much of the surface of the northern 
States. The east, and New- York in particular, abound in them, though 
farther west the lover of the picturesque must be content to receive 
the prairie in their stead. It would l>e a greal mistake, however, to 
attempt to compare any of these lakes with the finest of the old world; 
though many of them are M'\y lovely and all contribute to embellish 
the scenery. Lake George itself could not occupy more than a fourth 
or fifth position in a justly graduated scale of the lakes of < Ihristendom ; 
though certainly very charming to the eye, ami of singular variety in 
its aspects. In one particular, indeed, this lake ha- scarcely an equal. 



58 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 

We allude to its islands, which are said to equal the number of the 
days in the year. Points, promontories, and headlands are scarcely 
ever substitutes for islands, which add inexpressibly to the effect of all 
water-views. 

It has been a question among the admirers of natural scenery, 
whether the presence or absence of detached farm-houses, of trees, of 
hedges, walls and fences, most contribute to the effect of any inland 
view. As these are the great points of distinction between the conti- 
nent of Europe and our own country, we shall pause a moment to 
examine the subject a little more in detail. When the towns and 
villages are sufficiently numerous to catch the attention of the eye, 
and there are occasional fragments of forest in sight, one does not so 
much miss the absence of that appearance of comfort and animated 
beauty that the other style of embellishment so eminently possesses. 
A great deal, however, dej^ends, as respects these particulars, on the 
nature of the architecture and the color of the buildings and fences. 
It is only in very particular places and under very dull lights, that 
the contrast between white and green is agreeable. A fence that looks 
as if it were covered with clothes hung out to dry, does very little 
towards aiding the picturesque. And he who endeavors to improve 
his taste in these particulars, will not fad to discover in time that a 
range of country which gives up its ol gects, chiselled and distinct, but 
sober, and sometimes sombre, will eventually take stronger hold of his 
fancy than one that is glittering with the fruits of the paint and white- 
wash brushes. We are never dissatisfied with the natural tints of 
stone, for the mind readily submits to the ordering of nature; and 
though one color may be preferred to another, each and all are accept- 
able in their proper places. Thus, a marble structure is expected to 
be white, and as such, if the building he of suitable dimensions and 
proportions, escapes our criticisms, on account of its richness and uses. 



\Mi:i:i( \\ AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 59 

The same maj be said of other hues, when nol artificial; bu1 we think 
thai mosl admirers of nature, as thej come to cultivate their tastes, 
settle down into a preference for the graj and subdued over all the 
brighter tints thai arl can produce. In this particular, then, we give 
the preference to the effects of European scenery, over thai of this 
country, where wood is so mud used for the purposes of building, 
and where the fashion has long been to color it with white. A better 
taste, however, or what we esteem as such, is beginning to prevail, and 
bouses in towns and villages are now not unfrequentlj even painted 
in subdued colors. We regard the effect as an improvement, though 
to our taste no hue. iii it- artificial objects, so embellishes a landscape 
as the -oleum color of the more sober, and less meretricious looking 
stones. 

We believe that a structure of white, with green Mind-, is almost 
peculiar to this country. In the most propitious situations, and under 
the happiest circumstances, the colors are unquestionably unsuited to 
architecture, which, like statuary, should have but one tint. If, however, 
it be deemed essential to the flaunting tastes of the mistress of some 
man-ion. to cause the hues of the edifice in which she resides to be as 
•ja\ as her toilette, we earnestly protest against the brigb.1 green that 
is occasionally introduced for such purposes. There is a graver tint, of 

the same color, that entirely changes the express] »f a dwelling. 

Place two of these houses in close proximity, and scarcely an intellec- 
tual being would pass them, without saying that the owner of the one 
was much superior to the owner of the other in all that marks the 
civilized man. Put a third structure in the immediate vicinity of 
these two. that should have hut one color on its surface, including its 
blinds, and we think that nine persons in ten, except the very vulgar 
and uninstructed, would at once jump to the conclusion that the owner 
of this habitation was in tastes and refinement superior to both his 



60 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 

neighbors. A great improvement, however, in rural as well as in town 
architecture, is now in the course of introduction throughout all the 
northern States. More attention is paid to the picturesque than was 
formerly the case, and the effects are becoming as numerous as they 
are pleasing. We should particularize New Haven, as one of those 
towns that has been thus embellished of late years, and there are 
other places, of nearly equal size, that might be mentioned as having 
the same claims to an improved taste. But to return to the great 
distinctive features between an ordinary American landscape and a 
similar scene in Europe. Of the artificial accessories it is scarcely 
necessary to say any more. One does not expect to meet with a 
ruined castle or abbey, or even fortress, in America ; nor, on the other 
hand, does the traveller look for the forests of America, or that abun- 
dance of wood, which gives to nearly every farm a sufficiency for all 
the common wants of life, on the plains and heights of the old world. 
Wood there certainly is, and possibly enough to meet the ordinary 
wants of the different countries, but it is generally in the hands of the 
governments or the great proprietors, and takes the aspect of forests of 
greater or less size, that are well cared for, cleared and trimmed like 
the grounds of a park. 

Germany has, we think, in some respects a strong resemblance to 
the views of America. It is not so much wanting in detached copses 
and smaller plantations of trees as the countries farther south and east 
of it, while it has less of the naked aspect in general that is so remark- 
aide in France. Detached buildings occur more frequently in Germany 
than in France especially, and we might add also in Spain. The 
reader will remember that it is a prevalent usage throughout Europe, 
with the exception of the British Islands, Holland, and here and there 
a province in other countries, for the rural population to dwell in 
villages. This practice gives to the German landscape, in particular, a 



\\li.i:ii \\ ami Ki UOPEAN SCENERY. 61 

species <>t' resemblance to what is ordinarilj termed park scenery, 
though it is necessarilj wanting in much of thai expression which 
characterizes the embellishments thai properhj belong to the latter. 
With ns this resemblance is often even stronger, in consequence of the 
careless graces of nature and the great affluence of detached woods; 
tlir distinguishing features existing in the farm-house, fences ami out- 
buildinffs. Of a cloudy day, a distant view in America often bears 
this likeness to the park, in a very marked degree, for then the graces 
of the scene are visible to the eye, while the defects of the details are 
too remote to he detected. 

The mountain scenery of the United States, though wanting in 
grandeur, and in that wild sublimity which ordinarily belongs to a 
granite formation, is not without attractions that are singularly its 
own. The great abundance of forest, the arable qualities of the soil, 
and the peculiar Mending of what may he termed the agricultural ami 
the savage, unite to produce landscapes of extraordinary beauty and 
grace. Vast regions of country possessing this character are to be 
found in almost all the old States, for after quitting the coast for a 
greater or less distance, varying from one to two hundred miles, the 
ranges of the Alleghanies interpose between the monotonous districts 
of the Atlantic shores and the great plains of the west. We are of 
opinion that as civilization advances, and the husbandman has brought 
his lands to the highest state of cultivation, there will be a line of 
mountain scenery extending from Maine to Georgia, in a north and 
south direction, and possessing a. general width of from one to two 
hundred miles, from east to west, that will scarcely have a parallel in 
any other quarter of the world, in those sylvan upland landscapes, 
which, while they are wanting in the sublimity of the Alpine regions, 
share so largely in the striking and effective. 

It is usual for the American to boast of his rivers, no1 only for 



62 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 

their size and usefulness, but for their beauties. A thousand streams, 
that in older regions would have been rendered memorable, ages since, 
by the poet, the painter, art in every form, and the events of a teeming 
history, flow within the limits of the United States still unsung, aud 
nearly unknown. As yet, something is ordinarily wanting, in the way 
of finish, along the banks of these inferior water-courses. But occasion- 
ally, in places where art has, as it might be, accidentally assisted 
nature, they come into the landscape with the most pleasing influence 
<m its charms. In this respect, the peculiarity of the country is rather 
in a want of uniformity than in any want of material. To us, it would 
seem that all the northern States of America, at least, are far better 
watered than common, and that consequently they possess more of this 
species of beauty. As for the great streams, the largest, perhaps, 
have the least claims to high character in this respect in both the old 
and the new world. The Rhine is an exception, however, for it would 
be difficult to find another river of equal length and with the same 
flow of water, that possesses the same diversity of character or one 
so peculiar. At its source it descends from the high glaciers of the 
Alps a number of brawling brooks, which forcing their way through 
the upper valleys, unite below in a straggling, rapid, but shallow 
stream, that finds its way into the lake of Constance, out of which it 
issues a eon quiet, rapid river, imposing by its volume of water, rather 
than by its breadth, or any other advantage. Its cataracts, so celebra- 
ted in the old world, can scarcely claim to be the equal of the Cohoes, 
or many others of the secondary falls of this country, though the 
Rhine has always an abundance of water, which the Mohawk has not. 
On quitting Switzerland, this remarkable stream assumes many aspects, 
and decorates, beyond a doubt, as much landscape scenery as falls to 
tlie share of any other stream in the known world. We do not think 
it, however, in its best parts, equal to the Hudson in its whole length, 



AMEBIC AH A X I) EUROPE AN SCENERY. 63 

though the characters of these two risers arc so very different as 
scarcely to admit of a fair comparison. Perhaps the most remarkable 
feature of the Rhine is its termination, for after embellishing and 
serving the purposes of such an extent of country in the verj heart of 
Europe, it disappears, as it might be, in a number of straggling, unin- 
teresting, turbid waters, among the marshes of Holland. This is a 
very different exit from that which characterizes the majestic tkvw of 
the Hudson to the Atlantic. 

England has no great rivers to boast of, though she has a few of 
singular claims to notice, on account of the great flow of the tides ami 
the vast amount of commerce that they bear on their bosom. The 
Thames, so renowned in history, is as uninteresting as possible, until it 
passes above the bridges of London, where it becomes an ordinarily 
pretty sylvan stream. 

The Seine, another river, familiar in name, at least, to every reader, 
has much higher claims than its neighbor of the British Islands, in the 
way of natural beauty. This stream, from Rouen to the Channel, is 
not without some very tine scenery, as well as possessing a verj vari- 
ant and interesting character, with both natural and artificial accesso- 
ries, to say nothing of the historical, that draw largely on the atten- 
tion. 

Italy has man) rivers that are celebrated in song or story, but not 

, we think, that should rank high, on the ground of Landscape 

beauty. Mos1 of her streams are so dependent on the melting of the 
snows in the Apennines and Alps, a- to be cither brawling torrent-, or 
meagre, straggling pool-. The Arno, the Po, the Adige, the Tiber, 
and all the other rivers of that peninsula, are obnoxious to these 
objections. Even the Tiber, which is navigable a- high a- Rome, for 
vessels of a, light draft, is cither a tranquil thread, or one of those 
noisy, turbid streams that overflow their banks, and often appear at a 
loss to know in which direction to pour their water-. 



64 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 

The day is not distant, when America must possess a vast extent 
of territory of a character directly the reverse of that we have described 
in our mountain scenery, but which, nevertheless, will not be without 
a certain magnificence from its extent, productions, and fertility. We 
allude to the great plains of the West ; those which he between the 
bases of the Alleghanies and the semi-sterile steppes that are known 
in this part of the world as the great prairies. Lombardy, teeming as 
she is with population, vines, and all the productions of a fertile soil, 
in the possession of millions, sinks into insignificance before the vast 
plains that are destined to be her rivals in this quarter of the world. 
Perhaps New- York, alone, could furnish nearly as much of this charac- 
ter of country as is to be found in Upper Italy; for, stretching from 
the shores of Ontario towards the southern ranges of uplands, and as 
far east as Utica, is spread to the eye a vast extent of the most fertile 
plain, slightly relieved in places with a rolling surface of very respecta- 
ble claims to natural beauty. We question if greater fertility is to be 
found in any part of the world, than is met with in the region last 
mentioned, though drainage and the other works of an advanced state 
of husbandry are still much wanting to bring forth both its fertility 
and its beauties. 

New- York, indeed, in the way of scenery, has very high claims to 
variety, gracefulness, and even grandeur, among the mountains of the 
counties bordering on Champlain. By grandeur, however, let there 
1 >e no mistake, by receiving the term in any other than a limited sense. 
Any Avell delineated view of a high-class Swiss scene, must at once 
convince even the most provincial mind among us that nothing of the 
sort is to be found in America, east of the Rocky Mountains. Never- 
theless, the Adirondack has claims to a wild grandeur, which, if it 
do not approach magnificence, is of a character to impress a region 
with the seal of a very noble nature. The lovers of the picturesque 



\ M i: i: I i \ N \ n D EUROPEAN 3CENEBY. 65 

sustain a greal loss by means of the numerous lines of railroads thai 
have recently come into existence. This is true of both Europe and 
America. In the course of time, it will be found that every where a 
country presents its besl face towards its thoroughfares. Ever} thing 
that depends on art, naturally takes this aspect, for men are as likelj 
to put "ii their best appearance along a wayside in the country as on 
the streets of a town. All that lias Ween done, therefore, in past ages, 
in thes,- particular-, is being deranged and in some instances deformed 
by the necessity of preserving levels, and avoiding the more valuable 
portions of a country, in order to diminish expense. Thus villages and 
towns are no longer entered by their finest passages, producing the 
best effects; but the traveller is apt to find his view limited by ranges 
of sheds, out-houses, and other deformities of that nature. Here and 
there, some work of art, compelled by necessity, furnishes a relief to 
this deformity. But on the whole, the recenl system of railroads has 
as yet done very little towards adding much to the picturesque for 
the benefit of the traveller. Here and there is to be found an excep- 
tion, however, to this rule; portions of the Erie railroad, and the 
whole of the Hudson River, as well as that along the Rhine, necessa- 
rily possessing the advantage of sharing in the sublimity and -race 
through which they pass. Time will, of course, remedy the detects of 
the whole arrangement ; and a new front will be presented, as it ma\ 
lie, to the traveller throughout the civilized world. Whether human 
ingenuity will yet succeed in inventing substitutes for the smoke and 
other unpleasant appliance-, of a railroad train, remains to be seen ; 

luit we think few will lie disposed to differ from us, when we saj that 

in our view of the matter this great improvement of modern inter- 
course has done very little towards the embellishment of a country in 
the way of landscapes. The graceful winding curvatures of the old 
highways, the acclivities ami declivities, tie- copses, meadow- and 



66 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 

woods, the half-hidden church, nestling among the leaves of its elms 
and pines, the neat and secluded hamlet, the farm-house, with all its 
comforts and sober arrangements, so disposed as to greet the eye of 
the passenger, will long be hopelessly looked for by him who flies 
through these scenes, which, like a picture placed in a false light, no 
longer reflects the genius and skill of the artist. 

The old world enjoys an advantage as regards the picturesque and 
pleasing, in connection with its towns, that is wholly unknown, unless 
it may be in the way of exception, among ourselves. The necessity, 
in the middle ages, of building for defence, and the want of artillery 
before the invention of gunpowder, contributed to the construction of 
military works for the protection of the towns of Europe, that still 
remain, owing to their durable materials, often producing some of the 
finest effects that the imagination could invent to embellish a picture. 
Nothing of the sort, of course, is to be met with here, for we have no 
castles, have never felt the necessity of fortified towns, and had no 
existence at the period when works of this nature came within the 
ordinary appliances of society. On the contrary, the utilitarian spirit 
of the day labors to erase every inequality from the surface of the 
American town, substituting convenience for appearance. It is proba- 
ble there is no one who, in the end, would not give a preference to 
these new improvements for a permanent residence ; but it is not to 
be denied that s<> far as the landscape is concerned, the customs of the 
middle ages constructed much the most picturesque and striking col- 
lections of human habitations. Indeed, it is scarcely possible for the 
mind to conceive of objects of this nature, that are thrown together 
with finer effects, than are to be met with among the mountainous 
regions, in particular, of Europe. We illustrate one or two that are 
to be met with in the Apennines, and the Alps, and even in Ger- 
many, as proofs of what we say. The eye, of itself, will teach the 



\ M i: i: 1 c \ N ami 1:1 ROPE AN SCENERY. 6*7 

reader, that Richmond and Boston, and Washington and Baltimore, 
and half-a-dozen other American towns thai do possess more or less of 
an unequal surface, musl yield the palm to those gloriously beautiful 
objects of the old world. When it is remembered, too, how much 
time has multiplied these last, it can be seen that there are large dis- 
tricts in the mountain regions of the other hemisphere, that enjoj 
this superiority over us, if superiority it can be called, to poss e>< the 
picturesque, at the expense of the convenient. The imagination can 
scarcely equal the pictures of this nature that often meet the eye in 
1 lie southern countries of Europe. Villages, with the chiselled outlines 
of castles, gray, soml ire, but distinct, are often seen, perched on the 
summits of rocky heights, or adhering, as it might be, to their sides, in 
situations that are frequently even appalling, and which invariably 
lend a character of peculiar beauty to the view. There are parts of 
Europe in which the traveller encounters these objects in great num- 
bers, and if an American, they never fail to attract his attention, as 
the wigwam and the hark canoe, and the prairie with lines of bisons, 
would catch the eye of a wayfarer from the old world. To these 
humbler mountain pictures, must lie added many a castle and strong- 
hold of royal, or semi-royal origin, that are met with on the summits 
of abrupt and rocky eminences farther north. Germany has many of 
these strong-holds, which are kept up to the present day and which 
are found to he useful as places of security, as they are certainly pecu- 
liar and interesting in the landscape. 

It has often been said li\ scientific writers, that this country affords 
man] signs of an origin more recent than the surface of Europe. The 
proofs cited are the greater depths of the ravines, wrought bj the 

action of the waters following the courses of the torrents, and the 

greater and general aspect of antiquity that is impressed on natural ob- 
jects in the other hemisphere. This theory, however, has met with a 



68 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY. 

distinguished opponent in our own time. "Without entering at all into 
the merits of this controversy, we shall admit that to the ordinary eye 
America generally is impressed with an ah- of freshness, youthfulness, 
and in many instances, to use a coarse but expressive term, rawness, 
that are seldom, if ever, met with in Europe. It might perhaps be 
easy to account for this by the labors of man, alone, though we think 
that natural objects contribute their full share towards deepening the 
picture. We know of no mountain summits on this side of the Atlan- 
tic that wear the hoary hues of hundreds that are seen on the other 
side of the water ; and nearly everywhere in this country that the eye 
rests on a mountain-top, it encounters a rounded outline of no very 
decided tints, unless, indeed, it may actually encounter verdure. To 
our eye, this character of youthfulness is very strongly perceptible 
throughout those portions of the republic with which we are per- 
sonally acquainted, and we say this without reference to the recent 
settlements, which necessarily partake of this character, but to the 
oldest and most finished of our own landscapes. The banks of the 
Hudson, for instance, have not the impress of time as strongly marked 
on their heights and headlands, and bays, and even mountains, as 
tlie banks of the Bhine ; and we have often even fancied that 
this distinguishing feature between the old and new worlds is to be 
traced on nearly every object of nature or art. Doubtless the latter 
has been the principal agent in producing these effects ; but it is unde- 
niable that they form a leading point of distinction in the general 
character of the scenery of the two continents. As for England, it has 
a shorn and shaven aspect that reminds one of the husbandman in his 
Sunday's attire ; for we have seen that island in February, when, owing 
to the great quantity of its grain and the prevalent humidity of the 
atmosphere, it really appeared to us to possess more verdure than it 
did in the subsequent July and August. 



\Mi:i:i< \\ AMI EUROPEAN SCENERY. 69 

There is one feature in European scenery, generally, more preva- 
lent, however, in Catholic than in ether countries, to which we must 
allude before we close. The bourg, or town, with its gray castellated 
outlines, ami possibly with walls of the middle ages, is, almosl invaria- 
bly, clustered around the high, pointed root's ami solemn towers of the 
church. With us, how different is the effect! Haifa dozen ill-shaped, 
and \ et pretending' cupolas, and other ambitious objects, half the time 
in painted wood, just peer above the village, while the most aspiring 
roof is almost invariably that of the tavern. Id may be easy enough 
to account for this difference, and to offer a sufficient apology for its 
e\i-tence. But to the observant lover of the picturesque the effecl is 
not only unpleasant but often repulsive. No one of ordinary liberality 
would wish to interfere with freedom of conscience, in order to obtain 
fine landscapes ; but this is one of the hundred instances in which the 
thoughtful man finds reason to regret that the church, as it exists 
anion-- as, is not really more Catholic. 

To conclude, we concede to Europe much the noblest scenery, in its 
Alps, Pyrenees, and Apennines; in its objects of art, as a matter of 
course; in all those effects which depend on time and association, in its 
monuments, and in this impress of the past which may be said to be 
retlected in its countenance; while we claim for America the freshness 
of a most promising- youth, and a species of natural radiance that carries 
the mind with reverence to the source of all that is glorious around us. 



THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS. 



BY WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The Cat-kill, KatskUl, or Cat River Mountains derived their name, 
in the time of the Dutch domination, from the Catamounts by 
which tli<\ urn' infested; and which, with the bear, the wolf, and 
the dorr, arc still to be found in some of their most difficult recesses. 
The interior of these mountains is in the highest degree wild and 
romantic; here are rocky precipices mantled with primeval forests; 
deep gorges walled in ly beetling clifts, with torrents tumbling as il 
were from the sky; and savage glens rarely trodden excepting by (lie 
hunter. With all this internal rudeness, the aspect of these mountains 
toward the Hudson at times is eminently bland and beautiful, sloping 
down into a country softened by cultivation, and bearing much of the 
rich character of Italian sceneiy about the skirts of the Apennines. 

The Catskills form an advanced post, or lateral spur of tin' greal 
Alleganian or Appalachian system of mountains which sweeps through 
tie- interior of our continent, from Southwest to Northeast, from 
Alabama to the extremity of Maine, tor nearly fourteen hundred 
miles, belting the whole of our original confederacy, and rivalling our 



72 T II E CAT8KHL MOUNTAINS. 

greal system of lakes in extent and grandeur. Its vast ramifications 
comprise a number of parallel chains and lateral groups; such as the 
Cumberland Mountains, the Blue Ridge, the Allegauies, the Dela- 
ware and Lehigh, the Highlands of the Hudson, the Green Mountains 
of Vermont, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. In many 
of these vast ranges or sierras, nature still reigns in indomitable wild- 
ness: their rocky ridges, their rugged clefts and defiles, teem with 
magnificent vegetation. Here are locked up mighty forests that have 
never been invaded by the axe; deep umbrageous valleys where the 
virgin soil has never been outraged by the plough; bright streams 
flowing in untasked idleness, unburthened by commerce, unchecked 
by the mill-dam. This mountain zone is in fact the great poetical 
region of our country; resisting, like the tribes which once inhabited 
it, the taming hand of cultivation; and maintaining a hallowed ground 
for fancy and the muses. It is a magnificent and all-pervading feature, 
that might have given our country a name, and a poetical one, had 
not the all-controlling powers of common-place determined otherwise. 
The Catskill Mountains, as I have observed, maintain all the inter- 
nal wildness of the labyrinth of mountains with which they are con- 
nected. Their detached position, overlooking a wide lowland region, 
with the majestic Hudson rolling through it, has given them a distinct 
character, and rendered them at all times a rallying point for romance 
and fable. Much of the fanciful associations with which they have 
been clothed may be owing to their being peculiarly subject to those 
beautiful atmospherical effects which constitute one of the great 
charms of Hudson River scenery. To me they have ever been the 
fairy region of the Hudson. I speak, however, from early impres- 
sions ; made in the happy days of boyhood ; when all the world had 
a tinge of fairy land. I shall never forget my first view of these 
mountains. It was in the course of a voyage up the Hudson in the 



'I'll E (' A TS K 1 I. I. M o r \ I A 1 \ s. 7.", 

good old times before steamboats and railroads had driven all poetry 
and romance oul of travel. A voyage up the Hudson in those days, 
was equal to a voyage to Europe at present, and cosl almosl as much 
time : but we enjoyed the river (hen ; we relished it ;l s we did our wine, 
si]> bj sip, not, as at present, gulping all down at a draughl with. ait 
tasting it. M\ whole voyage up the Hudson was full of wonder and 
romance. 1 was ;1 lively boy, somewhat imaginative, of easy faith, and 
prone to relish everything which partook of the marvellous. Among 
the passengers on board of the sloop was a veteran Indian trader, on 
his way to the Ink.-, to traffic with the natives. He had discovered my 
propensity, and amused himself throughout the voyage by telling me 
Indian legends and grotesque stories about everj noted place on the 
river, such as Spuyten Devil Creek, the Tappan Sea, the Devil's Dans- 
Kammer, and other hobgoblin places. The Catskill Mountains espe- 
cially called forth a hosl of fanciful traditions. We were all da\ 
slowly tiding along in sight of them, so that he had full time to weave 
hi- whimsical narratives. In these mountains he told me, according to 
Indian belief, was kept the greal treasury of storm and sunshine, for 
the region of the Hudson. An old squaw spirit had charge of it, who 
dwelt <,n the highest peak of the mountain. Here she kept Day and 
Nighl shut up in her wigwam, letting out only one of them at a time. She 
made new moons every month, and hung them up in the -k\. cutting 
up the old ones into stars. The greal Manitou, or master spirit, employ- 
ed her to manufacture clouds; sometimes she wove them out of cob- 
webs, gossamers, and morning dew, and sent them off (lake after (lake, 
to tloat iii the air and give light summer showers- sometimes she 
would brew up Mack thunder-storms, and send down drenching rain-; 
to -well the streams and sweep everything away. He had mam 
stories, also, about mischievous spirits who infested the mountains in 
the shape of animals, and played all kind- of pranks upon Indian 

10 



74 THE OAT SKILL MOUNTAINS. 

hunters, decoying tlieni into quagmires and morasses, or to the brinks 
of torrents and precipices* All these were doled out to me as I lay- 
on the deck throughout a long summer's day, gazing upon these moun- 
tains, the ever-changing shapes and hues of which appeared to realize 
the magical influences in question — sometimes they seemed to ap- 
proach ; at others to recede ; during the heat of the day they almost 
melted into a sultry haze ; as the day declined they deepened in tone ; 
their summits were brightened by the last rays of the sun, and later 
in the evening their whole outline was printed in deep purple against 
an amber sky. As I beheld them thus shifting continually before my 
eye, and listened to the marvellous legends of the trader, a host of 
fanciful notions concerning them was conjured into my brain, which 
have haunted it ever since. 

As to the Indian superstitions concerning the treasury of storms 
and sunshine, and the cloud-weaving spirits, they may have been sug- 
gested by the atmospherical phenomena of these mountains, the clouds 
which gather round their summits and the thousand aerial effects which 
indicate the changes of weather over a great extent of country. They 
are epitomes of our variable climate, and are stamped with all its 
vicissitudes. And here let me say a word in favor of those vicissitudes 
which are too often made the subject of exclusive repining. If they 
annoy us occasionally by changes from hot to cold, from wet to dry, 
they give us one of the most beautiful climates in the world. They 
give us the brilliant sunshine of the south of Europe with the fresh 
verdure of the north. They float our summer sky with clouds of gor- 
geous tints or fleecy whiteness, and send down cooling showers to refresh 
the panting earth and keep it green. Our seasons are all poetical ; the 

* Some of these Indian superstitions about the Catskill Mountains have already been spoken 
of in a postscript to Rip Van Winkle, in the revised edition of the Sketch Book. 



T II 10 CATSKILL .M < > I ' N I A 1 N s . 7 5 

phenomena of our heavens are full of sublimity and beauty. Winter with 
ii- has none of its pro\ erbial gloom. It may have its howling winds, and 
thrilling frosts, and whirling snow-storms ; but it has also its long inter- 
nals of cloudless sunshine, when the snow-clad earth gives redoubled 
brightness to the day ; when at night the stars beam with intensesl lustre, 
or the iiicHiu floods the whole landscape with her most limpid radiance 

— and then the joyous outbreak of our spring, bursting a1 once into 
leaf and blossom, redundant with vegetation, and vociferous with life! 

— and the splendors of our summer ; its morning voluptuousness and 
r\ ening glorj ; its airy palaces of sun-gilt clouds piled up in a deep azure 
sky; and its gusts of tempest of almost tropical grandeur, when the forked 
lightning and the bellowing thunder volley from the battlements of 

heaven and shake the sultry atniosphert and the sublime melancholy 

of our autumn, magnificent in its decay, withering down the pomp and 
pride of a woodland country, yet reflecting back from its yellow forests 
the golden serenity of the sky — - surely we may say that in our climate 
"the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth 
forth his handy work: day unto day uttereth speech; and night unto 
night showeth knowledge." 

A word more concerning the Catskills. It is not the Indians only 
to whom they have been a kind of wonder-land. In the earlj times 
of the Dutch dynasty we find them themes of golden speculation 
among even the sages of New Amsterdam. During the administration 
of Wilhelmus Kieft there was a meeting between the Director of the 
New Netherlands and the chiefs of the Mohawk nation to conclude a 
treaty of peace. On this occasion the Director was accompanied by 
Mynheer Adriaen Van '\rv Donk, Doctor of Laws, and subsequently 
historian of the colony. The Indian chiefs, as usual, painted and deco- 
rated themselves ( ,n the ceremony. One of them in so doing made use 
of a pigment, the weight and shining appearance of which attracted 



76 THE CATSKILI MOUNTAINS. 

the notice of Kieft and his learned companion, who suspected it to be 
ore. They procured a lump of it, and took it back with them to New 
Amsterdam. Here it was submitted to the inspection of Iohannes De la 
Montague, an eminent Huguenot doctor of medicine, one of the counsel- 
lors of the New Netherlands. The supposed ore was forthwith put in a 
crucible aud assayed, and to the great exultation of the junto yielded 
two pieces of gold, worth about three guilders. This golden discovery 
was kept a profound secret. As soon as the treaty of peace was adjusted 
with the Mohawks, William Kieft sent a trust}- officer and a party 
of men under guidance of an Indian, who undertook to conduct them 
to the place whence the ore had been found. We have no account of 
this gold-hunting expedition, nor of its whereabouts, excepting that it 
was somewhere on the Catskill Mountains. The exploring party 
brought back a 1 mcketful of ore. Like the former specimen it was 
submitted to the crucible of De la Montagne, and was equally produc- 
tive of gold. All this we have on the authority of Doctor Van der 
Donk, who was an eye-witness of the process and its result, and re- 
cords the whole in his Description of the New Netherlands. 

William Kieft now dispatched a confidential agent, one Arent Cor- 
sen, to convey a sackful of the precious ore to Holland. Corsen em- 
barked at New Haven in a British vessel bound to England, whence 
he was to cross to Rotterdam. The ship set sail about Christmas, 
but never reached her port. All on board perished. 

In 104*7, when the redoubtable Petrus Stuyvesant took command 
of the New Netherlands, William Kieft embarked, on his return to 
Holland, provided with further specimens of the Catskill Mountain 
ore; from which he doubtless indulged golden anticipations. A similar 
fate attended him with that which had befallen his agent. The ship in 
which he had embarked was cast away, and he and his treasure were 
swallowed in the waves. 

Here closes the golden legend of the Catskills ; but another one <>t' 



THE CATSKILX MOUNTAINS. .1 

similar import succeeds. In L649, aboul two years after the ship- 
wreck of Wilhelmus Kieft, there was again rumor of precious metals 
in these mountains. Mynheer Brant Arenl Van Slechtenhorst, agenl 
of the Patroon of Rensselaerswyck, had purchased in behalf of the 
Patroon a tract of the Cat-kill lands, and leased it out in farms. 
A Dutch lass in the household of one of the farmers found one daj a 
glittering substance, which, on being examined, was pronounced silver 
ore. Branl Van Slechtenhorst forthwith sent his son from Rensselaers- 
wyck to explore the mountains in quest of' the supposed mines. The 
young man put up in the farmer's house, which had recently been 
erected on the margin of a mountain stream. Scarcely was he housed 
when a furious storm burst forth on the mountains. The thunders 
rolled, the lightnings Hashed, the rain came down in cataracts; the 
stream was suddenly swollen to a furious torrent thirtj feel deep; the 
farm-house and all its contents were swept away, and it was onlj by 
dint of excellent swimming that young Slechtenhorst saved hi- own 
life and the lives of his horses. Shortly after this a feud broke out 
between Peter Stuyvesant and the Patroon of Rensselaerswyck on 
account of the right and title to the Catskill Mountains, in the 
course of which the elder Slechtenhorst was taken captive by the 
Potentate of the New Netherlands and thrown in prison at New Am- 
sterdam. 

We have met with no record of any further attempt to get at the 
treasures of the Catskdlls; adventurers may have been discouraged by 

the ill luck which appeared to attend all who meddled with them, as 
if fchey were under the guardian keep of the same spirits or goblins 
who once haunted the mountain- and ruled over the weather. 

That gold and silver ore was actually procured from these moun- 
tain- in days of yore, we have historical evidence to prove, and the re- 
corded word of Adiiaen Van del' Donk, a man of weight, who was an 



78 THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS. 

eye-witness. If gold and silver were once to be found there, they must 
be there at present. It remains to be seen, in these gold-hunting days, 
whether the quest will be renewed, and some daring adventurer, fired 
with a true Californian spirit, will penetrate the mysteries of these 
mountains and open a golden region on the borders of the Hudson. 



A DISSOLVING VIEW. 



iiv .miss coop e i; . 



Autumn is the season for day-dreams. Wherever, at least, an 
American landscape shows its wooded heights dyed with the glory of 

( >cti>l><'r, its lawns and meadows decked with colored groves, its 
broad and limpid waters reflecting the same bright lines, there the 
brilliant novelty of the scene, that strange beauty to which the eye 
never becomes wholly accustomed, would seem to arouse the fancy to 
unusual activity. Images, quaint and strange, rise unhidden and till 
the mind, until we pause at length to make sure that, amid the novel 
aspect of the country, its inhabitants are still the same; we look again 
to convince ourselves that the pillared cottages, the wooden churches, 
the brick trading-houses, the long and many-windowed taverns, are still 
what they were a month earlier. 

The softening haze of the Indian summer, so common at the same 
season, add- to the illusory character of the view. The mountains 
have grown higher; their massive forms have acquired a new dignity 

from the airy veil which enfolds them, jusl as the drapery of ancient 

marbles serves to give additional grace to the movement of a limb, or to 



80 A DISSOLVING VIEW. 

mark more nobly the proportions of the form over which it is thrown. 
The different ridges, the lesser knolls, rise before us with new impor- 
tance ; the distances of the perspective are magnified ; and yet, at the 
same time, the comparative relations which the different objects bear 
to each other, are revealed with a beautiful accuracy wanting in a 
clearer atmosphere, where the unaided eye is more apt to err. 

There is always something of uncertainty, of caprice if you will, 
connected with our American autumn, which fixes the attention anew, 
every succeeding year, and adds to the fanciful character of the season. 
The beauty of spring is of a more assured nature; the same tints rise 
year after year in her verdure, and in her blossoms, but autumn is 
what our friends in France call " une beaute journal V 'ere? variable, 
changeable, not alike twice in succession, gay and brilliant yesterday, 
more languid and pale to-day. The hill-sides, the different groves, the 
single trees, vary from year to year under the combined influences of 
clouds and sunshine, the soft haze, or the clear frost ; the maple or 
oak, which last October was gorgeous crimson, may choose this season to 
wear the golden tint of the chestnut, or the pale yellow of duller trees ; 
the ash, which was straw-color, may become dark purple. One never 
knows beforehand exactly what to expect ; there is always some varia- 
tion, < >ccasionally a strange contrast. It is like awaiting the sunset of 
a brilliant day ; we feel confident that the evening sky will be beauti- 
ful, but what gorgeous clouds or what pearly tints may appear to 
delight the eye, no one can foretell. 

It was a soft hazy morning, early in October. The distant hills, 
with their rounded, dome-like heights, rising in every direction, had 
assumed on the surface of their crowning woods a rich tint of bronze, 
as though the swelling summits, gleaming in the sunlight, were 
wrought in fretted ornaments of that metal. Here and there a scarlet 
maple stood in full colored beauty, amid surrounding groves of green. 



a D [SSO i. V i \<; V i 1: w . 81 

A group of young oaks close a1 hand had also fell the influence of the 
frosty autumnal dews; their foliage, generally, was a lively green, 
worthy of June, wholly unlike decay, and yet each tree was touched 
here and therewith vivid snatches of the brightest red; the -mailer 
twigs close to the trunk forming brilliant crimson tufts, like knot- of 
ribbon. One might have fancied them a band of young knights, wear- 
in-- their ladies' colors over their hearts. A pretty flowering dogwood 
close at hand, with delicate shaft and airy branches, flushed with it- 
own peculiar tint of richest lake, was perchance the lady of the grove, 
the beauty whose colors were fluttering on the breasts of the knightly 
oaks on either side. The tiny seedling maples, with their delicate 
leaflets, were also in color, in choice shades of scarlet, crimson, and 
pink, like a new race of flowers blooming about the roots of the 
autumnal forest. 

We were sitting upon the trunk of a fallen pine, near a projecting 
cliff which overlooked the country for some fifteen miles or more; the 
lake, the rural town, and the farms in the valley beyond, lying at our 
feet like a beautiful map. A noisy flock of blue jays were chattering 
among the oak- whose branches overshadowed our seat, and a busy 
squirrel was dropping his winter store of chestnuts from another tree 
close at hand. A gentle breeze from the south came rustling through 
the colored woods, and already there was an autumnal sound in their 
murmurs. There is a difference in the music of the woods as the 
seasons change. In winter, when the waving limbs are bare, there is 
more of unity in the dee]) wail of the winds as they -weep through 
the forests; in 8ummer the rustling foliage gives some higher and 
more cheerful notes to the general harmony: and there is alsoachange 
of kej from the softer murmurs of the fresh foliage of earbj summer, 
to the sharp tones of the dry and withering lease- in ( >ctober. 

There i> something of a social spirit in the brilliancj of our Ame- 

11 



82 A DISSOLVING VIEW. 

rican autumn. All the glory of the colored forest would seem dis- 
played for human eyes to eujoy ; there is, in its earlier stages, an ah* 
of festive gayety which accords well with the cheerful labors of the sea- 
son, and there is a richness in the spectacle worthy of the harvest- 
home of a fruitful land. I should not care to pass the season in the 
wilderness which still covers large portions of the country ; either 
winter or summer should be the time for roaming in those boundless 
woods ; but with October let us return to a peopled region. A broad 
extent of forest is no doubt necessary to the magnificent spectacle, 
but there should also be broken woods, scattered groves, and isolated 
trees ; and it strikes me that the quiet fields of man, and his cheerful 
dwellings, should also have a place in the gay picture. Yes ; we felt 
convinced that an autumn view of the valley at our feet must be finer 
in its present varied aspect, than in past ages when wholly covered 
with wood. 

The hand of man generally improves a landscape. The earth has 
been given to him, and his presence in Eden is natural ; he gives life 
and spirit to the garden. It is only when he endeavors to rise above 
his true part of laborer and husbandman, when he assumes the cha- 
racter of creator, and piles you up hills, pumps you up a river, scatters 
stones, or sprinkles cascades, that lie is apt to fail. Generally the 
grassy meadow in the valley, the winding road climbing the hill-side, 
the cheerful village on the bank of the stream, give a higher addi- 
tional interest to the view ; or where there is something amiss in the 
scene, it is when there is some evident want of judgment, or good 
sense, or perhaps some proof of selfish avarice, or wastefulness, as 
when a country is stripped of its wood to fill the pockets or feed the 
fires of one generation. 

It is true there are scenes on so vast a scale, scenes so striking in 
themselves, that whatever there may be of man in view is at first 



A DISSOLVl SO V I E w. 83 

wholly overlooked ; we note the valley, but not his villages : we see the 
winding stream, but not the fisher's skiff; even in these instances, 
however, after the firsl vivid impressions produced by the grandeur of 
the spectacle, we please ourselves by dwelling on the lesser features 
awhile; ami after wondering on the Righi-Kulm at the sublime arraj 
of hoarj Alps bounding the distant horizon, we pause to note the 
smoke curling from the hamlet in the nearest valley, we mark the 
chalets dotting the mountain-side, or the white sail of the boat making 
it- w n\ across the lake. 

Even in those sublime scenes, where no trace of man meets the 
eye, in the cheerless monotony of the steppes of central Asia, in the 
arid deserts of Africa, a ug the uninhabited Andes, or in the bound- 
less forests of America, it is the absence of human life which is so 
highly impressive : and if other portions of the earth were not peopled 
with intellectual beings, mapped out by them and marked with their 
works, the contrast of those strange solitudes could not lie felt by 
the heart of the wanderer. 

All the other innumerable tribes of animated beings inhabiting 
this world, may crowd a country, and scarcely make an impression on 
its face which the winds and rains of a few seasons will not wholly 
obliterate; but man, in his most savage condition, shall raise some 
fortification, or heap over the bones of his heroes some vast misshapen 
pile, which outlast- perhaps the existence of a whole race. The south- 
eastern portion of Europe is a vast level region, resembling in many 
particulars the steppe- of central Asia, or the great prairies of our 
own country; until recently it lay a broad unpeopled waste, no pail 
of which had been brought under cultivation; but in the midst of 
these grassy solitudes rise rude ancient tumuli, or barrows, whoss 
origin goes back to periods anterior to historj ; nomadic shepherd 
tribes passed and repassed the ground forages, but knew nothing of 



84 A DISSOLVING VIEW. 

their story. Similar tumuli are numerous in western Asia also, and, 
like the mounds of our own continent, they doubtless belong to a rude 
and ancient race. These old works of earth, whose great piles refuse 
to reveal the names of those who reared them, never fail to excite a 
peculiar interest ; there is a spirit of mystery hovering over them 
beyond what is connected with monuments of any later period, even 
the proudest labors in stone ; so like the works of nature in this re- 
spect, they seem to possess for us something of the same profound 
secrecy. These lasting and remarkable tumuli, or mounds, although 
they produce no very striking effect on the aspect of a country, yet 
have an important place in the long array of works which give a pe- 
culiar character to the lands which man has once held as his own. 

The monuments of a succeeding age, raised by a more skilful peo- 
ple, are much more prominent. Indeed it would seem as if man had 
no sooner mastered the art of architecture, than he aimed at rivalling 
the dignity and durability of the works of nature which served as 
his models ; he resolved that his -nails of vast stones should stand in 
place as long as the rocks from which they were hewn ; that his col- 
umns and his arches should live with the trees and branches from 
which they were copied ; he determined to scale the heavens with his 
proud towers of Babel. The durability of their architecture still re- 
mains to the present day one of the most remarkable characteristics 
of those ancient ages. Such is the wonder excited in the minds of 
the most skilful architects of the present day at the sight of the im- 
mense masses of stone transported and uplifted, apparently at will, by 
those ancient nations, that some have supposed them to have possessed 
mechanical powers of their own, lost to succeeding ages, and not yet 
regained by ourselves. Certainly it would appear a well-assured fact, 
that the oldest works of the first great architects have been the most 
em lining and the most imposing of all that human art has raised. 



A DISSOLVING VI E W. 85 

How many centuries were required to ruin Babylon! Willi the pro- 
phetic curse of desolation hovering over her towns fur ages, the vio- 
lence of a dozen generations was aroused against her, nation after 
nation was brought to the work, ere that curse was fulfilled, and all 
her pride laid in the dust; and still to-day her shapeless ruins break 

the surface of the level desert which surrounds them. I k at the 

ancient temples of India ; look at Egypt with her ■wonderful works ; 
all the proudest edifices of modern times may ye1 tall to the ground, 

ere those Pyramids are ruined; they may see the last future acts of 
the earth's story, as they have stood mute witnesses of a thousand pasl 
histories. What were thai level country of Egypt, thai muddj Nile, 
without the Pyramids and the surrounding coeval monuments! 

Look, even later, at the works of Grecian and Roman ait. Al- 
though Greece and Rome were the chosen prey of barbarous nations 
for ages, yet not all the fury of millions of savages could utterly de- 
stroy the monuments they raised. Study the ruined temples, and 
theatres, and tombs, the aqueducts, the bridges of those ancient na- 
tions. Wha1 architectural labors have we which for excellence and 
beauty will compare with them \ For thousands of years they have 
stood, noble, distinctive features of the lands to which they belong. 
The little temple of the Sybil seems, to modern eyes, as much an in- 
tegral part of the surrounding hills, and the valley of Tivoli, as the 
evergreen oaks and olive trees, ay, as the stream which flings itself 
over the rocks at its feet. Wha1 were the Campagna, without it- 
broken aqueducts, its ancient tombs ? What were Rome itself withoul 
it- ruins? The architectural remains of those old works still give to 
the seven hills, ami the I. road plain aboul them, a positive beauty, 
which their modern works, imposing as they are, cannot equal. 

It i- well for us that those races of old undertook such noble 
labors. Ma\ we not believe that there was something Providential in 



86 A DISSOLVING VIEW. 

the feeling which led them to erect such lasting monuments % They 
built for us. Such works as the Pyramids, and their cotemporary 
temples, such works as those of Babel, Psestum, the Coliseum, the Par- 
thenon, belong to the race ; their influence is not confined to the soil 
on which they stand. As the sun of Time descends to complete its 
course, their shadows are thrown over the whole earth. 

In the middle ages, after Europe had become Christian, all the 
edifices of sufficient importance to give character to a country were 
divided in two great classes; they were the Gothic churches and 
abbeys of religion, or the fortified castles of war. It is rather singular 
that the age of the greatest extent of religious houses should also have 
been peculiarly an age of warfare; but no doubt the very prevalence 
of this warlike spirit was a cause of the increase of monarchism. If 
the dozen hills about a valley were each crowned with a castle, and 
if half a dozen feuds between their different lords laid waste the sur- 
rounding country, it became a sort of necessity for a Christian society 
that one house of peace, at least, should lie in the meadows of the 
valley, in view from the towers. The very violence of the age, united 
to the superstitious nature of religion at the time, was thus no doubt 
a cause of the great size and riches of the churches. Louis XI. of 
France, as a general rule, committed some act of cruelty or treachery 
every morning, and then sought to buy a pardon in the evening by 
some pecuniary favor to church or abbey ; and there were in those days 
many knights and barons bold whose consciences were appeased by 
the same course of proceeding. 

The durability of the works of the middle ages — although they 
had lost so much of ancient civilization — is still very remarkable. 
Some of the cathedrals, the castles, and the bridges of those days are 
likely, with a few exceptions here and there, to outlast modern works 
of the same nature ; certainly they may outlast those now standing in 



a ]> i sso i. v i x<; v i E w. 81 

this country. There are bridges of thai period in the wildest part- of 
Europe, so bold in their position, spanning gorges so deep, springing 
from precipices so abrupt, thai the people of later days gave them a 
magical origin, calling them " Devils' Bridges." There are feudal castles 
with walls so massive, that the idea <>t' razing them was abandoned 
after the orders to do so had been given. Their vasl cathedrals, whose 
noble spires still rise so grandly above the roofs of the towns to which 
they belong, were ages in building; some of these, nay, one maj say 
many of them, required such vasl sums of money, and such a long 
period of time to carry out the ureal designs of their architects, that 
tlie\ have remained unfinished to the present hour. They not only 
built for the future, in those days, but they expected posterity to 
work with them; and as one generation lay down in their graves, they 
called another generation to the pious labor. 

It is not exactly as a stranger that an American looks at these re- 
mains of feudal days, that he stands before the halt-ruined walls of 
their castles ; in one sense we also have an interesl in them. Who knows 
but ancestors of our own may have been among the squires who 
crossed that drawbridge, or among the masons who built the walls, 
or with the peasants who clustered under the protection of the banners 

of yonder ruined hold? At any rate there is 1 ue breathing in 

Christendom who,!' present late, perhaps both for good and for evil, 
ha- not been in some measure influenced by those days of chivalry and 
Buperstitious truth, in their bearing upon civilized societj at large. We 
Americans are as much the children of those European ages, as the pre- 
senl population of 1< Vance or England. 

The vast extent of the regions over which these ancient monuments 
are scattered, t he different series of them on the same soil — Druidical, 
Roman, Gothic, renaissance and modern give one a clearer idea than 
figures can, of the innumerable throngs of human beings which have 



88 A DISSOLVING VIEW. 

preceded the present tenants of the ground, and so fully stamped the 
impression of man on the face of the old world. The plains, the hills, 
the valleys, the cliffs, the bare and massive mountains, the islands, the 
very caves of those regions, all bear ancient human marks. The plains 
are crowned by remains of Eoman roads ; the valleys and the islands 
have been the seat of old monasteries, or perhaps still older villas ; the 
hills, the cliffs, the mountains, are crowned with the ruined towers of 
feudal days ; the wild gorges and the caves have been the haunts of 
banded robbers and outlaws, or of solitary hermits. 

The caves of the old world, more especially those of the eastern 
and southern countries, of Syria, Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, have 
had a strange story of their own. Many of them have been strong- 
holds, which have stood siege after siege, as for instance those of Pales- 
tine and Egypt. Others have been the dens of robbers, or pirates. 
Many, cut in the face of high and apparently inaccessible cliffs, have 
been used as tombs, and are more or less carved and sculptured within 
and without ; such are frequently seen in Syria and other parts of Asia. 
In southern Italy there are many caves in the face of the cliffs of the 
Apennines, whose openings are plainly seen from the highways in the 
valleys below ; those were at one time, when Italy was overrun by 
barbarous heathen nations, the refuge of Christian hermits. Probably 
the natural caves of those Eastern lands were the first dwellings of 
their earliest population. Thus it is that there is not in those old 
c< mntries a single natural feature of the earth upon which man has not 
set his seal, from the cave of Machpelah to the summit of the Alpine 
mountain, where the pale gray hues of the distant cross are faintly 
drawn against the shy. 

How different from all this is the aspect of our own country! It is 
true that our fathers, with amazing rapidity, have changed a forest 
wilderness into a civilized and populous land. But the fresh civiliza- 



A DISSOLV] \ Q V tBW, 89 

tion of America Is whollj differenl in asped from thai of the old 
world: there is no blending of the old and the new in this country; 
there is nothing old among us. If we were endowed with ruins we 
should not preserve them; they would be pulled down to make way 
for some novelty. A. striking instance of this tendency will befound in 
the fad thai the lasl hutch house in New-York has disappeared. For a 
long time a number of those historical way-marks existed in the older 
parts of the town, bul now, we understand thai the lasl high gable, the 
lasl Dutch walls, have disappeared froiaNew Amsterdam. We might 
havesupposed thai occupying so little space as they did, standing in 
streets with Dutch names, owned perhaps by men of Dutch descent, 
one, at least, of these relics of our own olden time might have been 
preserved. But no ; we are the reverse of conservators in this coun- 
try; it was idle perhaps to expect that a single monument of the 
origin of the town would be left in place. 

We are the borderers of civilization in America, but borderers of 
the nineteenth century, when all distances are lessened, whether moral 
or physical. And then, a- borderers, we a Km often act as pioneers ; the 
peculiar tendencies of the age are -ecu more clearly among us than in 
Europe. The civilization of the present is far more subtle in its cha- 
racter than that of the past, and its works are naturally like itself, 
highly influential, and important, but less dignified, and imposing in 
aspect. It would be comparatively an easy work to remove from the 
earth all traces of many of the peculiar merits of modern civilization, 
jusl as the grand Palace of Glass, now standing in London, that 
brilliant and characteristic work of the day, mighl in a W-w hours be 
utterly razed. Look at our lighl suspension bridges, marvellous as 
thej are. how soon they could be destroyed; looh at our railways, 
at our ships and manufactories moved by steam; look at the marvel- 
lous ,-le,tric telegraph, at the wonders Daguerre has showed us — 

12 



90 A DISSOLVING VIEW. 

look, in fact, at any of the peculiar and most remarkable of the works 
of the age, and see how speedily all traces of them could be removed. 
It will be said that the most important of all arts, that of printing, must 
suffice in itself to preserve all other discoveries : assuredly ; but remove 
the art of printing, bring fresh hordes of barbarians to sweep over the 
civilized world, let them busy themselves with the task of destruction, 
and say then what traces of our works would remain on the face of the 
earth as monuments of our period. Perchance, as regards America, 
the chief proofs that eastern civilization had once passed over this 
country would then he found in the mingled vegetation, the trees, the 
plants, ay, the very weeds of the old world. 

We are told by Monsieur Agassiz that, as the surface of the planet 
now exists, North America is, in reality, the oldest part of the earth. 
He tells us that in many particulars our vegetation, and our animal 
life, belong to an older period than those of the eastern hemisphere; 
he tells us of fossil hickories, and fossil gar-pikes in Europe, while 
hickories and gar-pikes are now confined to our own part of the world. 
Rut without doubting this theory, still there are many peculiarities 
which give to this country an air of youth heyond what is observed 
in the East. There are man)' parts of Europe, of Asia, of Africa, 
which have an old, worn-out, exhausted appearance ; sterile moun- 
tains, unwooded moors, barren deserts and plains. In North 
America, on the contrary, there is little territory which can be called 
really sterile. As a general rule, the extent and richness of its forests 
and its wealth of waters give it naturally a cheerful aspect, while the 
more rounded forms of the hills and mountains, and their covering of 
vegetation, leave an impression of youth on the mind, compared with 
the abrupt, rocky peaks, the smaller streams, and the open unwooded 
plains of eastern regions. 

The comparatively slight and fugitive character of American archi- 



A li I smi |. V I N"G V I E tt . 9 I 

tecture, no doubt, gives additional force to this impression. Seldom 
indeed are our edifices imposing. The chief merit of our masonrj and 
carpentry, especially when taken in the ma—, where the details are 
not critically examined, is a pleasing character of cheerfulness. It is 
nol the airj elegance of French or Italian art; it is not the gayetj of 
the Moorish or Arabesque; it is ye1 too unformed, too undecided to 
claim a character of its own, but the general air of comfort and thrift 
which shows itself in mos1 of our dwellings, whether <>n a large or a 
small scale, gives satisfaction in it- way. 

Such were the thoughts which came to us as we sat mi the fallen 
pine, among the October woods, overlooking the country. Before 
bending our steps homeward we amused ourselves with a sort of game 
of architectural consequences, the result of the preceding fancies. I 
had gathered a sprig of wych-hazel, and, waving it over the valley, de- 
termined to make a trial of its well-established magical power-. No 
sooner had the forked branch, garnished with its ragged yellow flow- 
ers, been waved to and fro, than strange work began! The wooden 

bridge at the entrance of the village fell into the stream and disap- 
peared; the court-house vanished; the seven taverns were gone; the 

dozen Stores had felt the spell; the churches Were not -pared; the 

hundred dwelling-houses shared the same fate, and vanished like the 
-moke from their own chimneys. Merely razing a village was not, 
however, our ambition; so we again had recourse to the leafless twig 
of wych-hazel. Scarcely hail it passed once more over the valley, 
when we saw a foresl -tart from the earth, the trees in full maturity, 
of the same variety of species, and in the same stage of autumnal 
coloring with the woods aboul us. lint even this reappearance of a 
foresl on the site of the vanished village did not -ati-!\ the whim of 
the moment. The branch of wych-hazel was again rapidly waved to- 
wards the four quarters of the heavens, and so great was the agitation 



a DISS :. " : :•" - view. 

of the moveineir. th t a numbe] fits ._ - bro- 

ken 3catl I wind over the country. Perhaps the 

—oms in 'he power of the spell, for in another moment we 

beheld tacle which wholly- across Iteration. We 

d indulging in the wish to have a the valley in the condi- 

it would h:i - aned, had it lain in the * : European civil- 

ization during past . - in such a case, would it hav 

ioned by the hand of man '. To our amazem I - wish v - 
granted. But it requh - tiny 1 - that 

this was ind of the village which had la mo- 

ment earlie:. thing was - -- _ y altered. "We soon 

vinced that all the natural features of the 1 

anained pre is -we had always know:. I arve 

in the outline of th - change I a knoll was mispla 

The vegetal - had lone been familiar with, and the 

_ 

coloring of the autumnal woods pi what it had in hour 

earlier. But here all resembla:. sed. Manv of the hills had been 

■ 

wholly shorn of wood. TL f the different farms and that 

of the buildings was entirely changed. Looking down upon the little 
town we saw it had dwindled to a mere* hamlet : low, picturesque, 
that'. ttages were irregularly grouped along a wide gi - -" 

and about a broad green which formed tih f the village : in 

this open grassy green stood _ - utifully designed 

and elaborately carved, doubtless : uument f s past :ieal 

s small inn, the only tavern, : the green and the c\ - 

and a 1 s _ swung heavily before the door. The church, the 
ling in the han.. - evidently very ed a 

I deal of g ts walls . of hew:. -- 

and rich window occup: st _ tul spire rose in 

ii. Two or three small, quiet-] v shops 



\ DISSOLVING VIE W. 93 

sented the trade of the place. The bridge was of massive stone, oar- 
row, and highlj arched, while the ruin- of a tower >i I close al 

hand. The fields were parted bj Ledges, which lined the narrow 
roads on either side. Several country houses were seen in the neigh- 
borhood, in various grades of importance. There was a pretty thatched 
cottage, with one large bay window for front, and surrounded bj a gaj 
flower-garden. Then just withoul the village was a place of some size, 
evidently an old country house, dating perhaps some six or eight gen- 
erations back, with its brick walls, quaint chimneys, angles, cornices, 
and additions ; this place could boast its park, and deer were grazing 
on the lawn. Yonder in the distance, upon the western shore of the 
lake, stood a castle of gray stone, its half dozen towers rising a hun- 
dred feet from tlif hill-side: there were beautiful lawns and broad 
masses of wood in this extensive domain; the building itself was in 
good condition, and apparently inhabited. On a pretty point, pro- 
jecting into the lake about a league from the village, stood a half- 
ruined convent, now reduced to a mere farm-house. Something whis- 
pered to as that a Roman road had once passed iii that direction, thai 
a villa had formerly stood on the same -pot as the Priory, and that 
ancient coin- were occasionally dug up there. 'The modern highways 
running through the valley were the most perfect that can he con- 
ceived. No less than nine different hamlets were in sight from our 
position on the cliff; two. in addition to the village at our feet, were 
seated on the, lake-shore; three more were seen clinging to the hill- 
sides, grouped aboul sites where feudal castles had 31 1 in former 

time-; another appeared on tin- bank of the river, at a point long 
used as a ford, and two more occupied different positions in the valley. 
Prettj graj spire-, or low church towers, were seen rising above 
of these hamlets. On the farthest hill to the northward, and from 
it- highest point, the ruin- of an ancient watchtower rose above the 
wood. 



( .»4 A DISSOLVING VIEW. 

I could cany my observations no further. The yellow flowers of 
the wych-hazel in my hand had attracted a roving bee, bent appa- 
rently on improving these List warm days, and harvesting the last 
drops of honey; the little creature had crept close to a finger, and a 
sharp sting soon recalled my wandering attention, and caused me to 
did]) the branch and the bee together. The magic wych-hazel thrown 
aside, the spell was over; the country had resumed its every-day 
aspect. 



THE SCENERY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



BY B A Y A i: D T A 1TLOB. 

There is, perhaps, ao State in the Union which presents a greater 
variety of landscape than Pennsylvania. This variety does no1 consisl 
only in the outward configuration of her surface — in the change from 
mountain to plain, from sterile grandeur to the rich monotony of a 
level alluvial region — but also in climate, atmosphere, and all those 
finer influences which arc as the soul to the material forms of Nature. 
All landscapes, whatever may lie their features, have a distinct indi- 
viduality, and express a sentimenl of their own. As in .Man, there is 
no reproduction of the same form or the same peculiar spirit, though 
in Kelts and broad ranges of scenery — often in entire countries 
Nature hear- some general distinguishing stamp wherebj the smallesl 
of her picture- may be recognized. 

It would Ke difficult to presenl any single landscape as being espe- 
cially Pennsylvanian. Occupying a central position among the Stat.-, 
Pennsylvania touches both Kelt- of the temperate zone, embracing 
within her boundaries varieties of climate ranffinsr between those of 

■ 

Canada and Virginia From the Atlantic tide-water, she crosses the 



96 THE SCENERY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

broad mountain chain which separates its affluents from those whose 
union forms the Beautiful River of the West, and from her Lake Erie 
border looks over to the cold shores of Canada. While she is washed 
by waters that have been thawed from ice-bound Winnipeg, far away 
towards the Arctic realm, the streams of half her territory find their 
way to the zone of the orange and the palm, before they reach the 
sea. In regard to the general characteristics of her scenery, the State 
may be divided into three districts : the warm agricultural region, 
lying in the south-eastern part, between the Susquehanna and the 
Delaware ; the mountain region, embracing all the ranges of the great 
Appalachian chain, many of which terminate before they reach the 
New-York frontier ; and the cool, rolling upland plateau of the north- 
west, with its lakes, forests, and abundant streams. Each of these 
regions has a separate character, and while no considerable part of 
the State is absolutely barren or monotonous, the tourist who tra- 
verses its whole extent is enchanted with the continual change and 
picturesque variety of scenery through which he passes. 

The only localities which have acquired much celebrity beyond 
the borders of the State, are the Valley of the Juniata River, (a 
charming glimpse of which is given in the engraving accompanying 
this sketch,) and the Vale of Wyoming, renowned through Brandt's 
Massacre and Campbell's poem; though the description of its bold and 
beautiful landscapes, as given by the transatlantic bard, is more befit- 
ting one of the rough barrancas of Mexico. The stranger who visits it 
with that description in his memory, will see no scarlet flamingoes cir- 
cling through the air, nor thorny aloes hanging from the crevices of 
the rocks, neither can he murmur the melodious cadences of Outalissi's 
death-song "on hillocks by the palm-tree overgrown." But the moun- 
tain rampart of Wyoming is plumed with the northern fir, and the 
sweel valley, with the Susquehanna in its lap and its foliage of oak, 



rii E sckx 1:1: v o f PEN \- v i, \ \ \ i \. 07 

chesnut, and sycamore, could scarcely fake an additional grace from 
the aloe or the palm. Yet, because those warm and opulent cham- 
paigns and those hills veined wiili iron and set on solid foundations of 
coal, which are the pride of Pennsylvania, are unsung and undescribed, 
(what part of our country has yet been justly described?) it should 

not be presumed that the State cannol show many a valley as lair as 

the mountain-girdled repose of Wyoming, and many a gorge as freshly 
and wildly beautiful as those through which leap the sparkling waters 
ill' the Juniata. 

Most beautiful to our eyes, perhaps because most familiar — more 
enticing even than the fastnesses of the Alleghanies — is that delightful 
region lying between them and the Delaware. The mountains, in 
their passage through the State, deflect gradually from their northern 
course and curve in the arc of a -rand circle towards its eastern and 
north-eastern boundary. The firsl ridge rises about forty miles wesl 
of the Susquehanna, where the river crosses .Mason and Dixon's line. 
Thence, running northward, it gives place to the Blue Ridge, which 
has come, with scarcely a break, from its starting-point in the central 
group of the North Carolina mountain region. Crossing the Susque- 
hanna near Harrisburg, the Blue Ridge bends away to the north-east, 
suffering the Schuylkill and Lehigh to slip through its deep gorges, 
and finally forms the stupendous Water-Gap of the Delaware. Pro- 
tected from the chill lake-winds by this grand natural barrier and the 
still higher ridges behind it, and open to the equalizing influence of 
the neai- Atlantic, this is the richest and most beautiful agricultural 
district of any of the sea-board States. If. climate is singularly genial 
and temperate, and the vegetation ^hich covers its softhj undulating 
hills has something of the rich tints and prodigal luxuriance of the 
South. The author of Evangeline sings of this region: "There the 
aii- is all balm and the peach is the emblem of beauty." 

13 



98 THE SCENERY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The face of the country is diversified with an endless succession of 
round, open hills, sometimes rising steep and bold from the banks of 
the rills and rivulets that course through it, sometimes receding so as 
to form gentle valleys, or spreading into broad upland tracts, rich with 
forests and pasture fields. Except the Great Valley of Chester, which 
extends from the Schuylkill to the Conestoga, a distance of forty 
miles, there are no long reaches of level land, whde there is scarcely a 
hill which may not be cultivated to its summit. The highest swells 
south of the Blue Rid^e do not rise more than five hundred feet 
above the sea-level. Near the mountains the winters are more cold 
and sharp, but in the southern part but little snow falls, and the 
autumn frequently stretches its mild reign into December. The great 
variety and beauty of the native forest-trees gives this region, in sum- 
mer, an almost tropical wealth of vegetation. The pine, the fir, the 
ccilar, the hemlock-spruce and the beech come down from the North 
and clothe the banks of the streams ; the oak, the walnut, the superb 
tulip-tree, the chesnut, sycamore and linden add their warmer and 
m< »re luxuriant foliage, and in some sheltered spots the magnolia pours 
from its snowy goblets a delicious perfume on the airs of early summer. 
The laurel, towards the end of May, covers whole hill-sides with its 
crimped pink blossoms, and the crimson rhododendron, scarcely less 
magnificent than the Cape Azalea, is frequently seen hanging over the 
clifts of the Schuylkill. 

At the commencement of June, when the leaves are fully ex- 
panded and retain their first fresh and beautiful green, the warmth, 
brightness and richness of the landscapes of this region are the very 
embodiment of the spirit of Summer. The forests are piled masses of 
gorgeous foliage, now stretching like a rampart over the hills, now 
following some winding water-course, and now broken into groves and 
clumps, dotting the undulations of the grain and grass fields. And 



THE SCENERY nK PENNSYLVANIA. 99 

those fields ! some rolling with the purple waves of the ripe,juicy 
clover; some silver-gray with rye, or just tinged with yellow where 
the wheal has leaned to the sun ; or glittering with the lance-like 
leaves of the Indian corn: — surely there can be no more imposing 
exhibition of agricultural wealth, even in older and more productive 
Lands. In the trim, careful beauty of England and the broad garden 
of the Rhine plain, one sees nothing of this prodigality of bloom and 
foliaffi — this Luxury of Nature. 

Here is found almost every variety of scenery which may lie Lad 
without mountain or prairie. The region is watered by several large 
streams and their tributaries. In addition to the Schuylkill and 
Lehigh, which take their rise on the southern slope of the mountains 
behind Wyoming, there is the Brandywine, made classic by its revolu- 
tionary memories and deserving of equal renown for the pastoral 
beauty of its course; the Octorara, a wild and picturesque stream, 
overhung with bold hills and frequently broken bj rocky barriers ; 
the Conestoga, watering the agricultural paradise of Lancaster county, 
and the Swatara, on whose banks the Suabian emigrants might forget 
their memories of the secluded Fils. Nor are there wanting fitting as- 
sociations to give the country a deeper interest than it- external 
beauty ; for nature never speaks to us with a perfect voice till she has 
received a soul from her connection with Man. The annals of the Re- 
volution are now old enough to nurture a legend; and what finer 
personages than Washington, Lafayette and Anthony Wayne on one 
side, and Howe and Knyphausen on the other I Still further bach we 
have William Penn, and that wife of his, who sal at the feet of Milton. 
And this was also the Vinland of Scandinavian Printz, when he 
brought his vessel, the Key of Calmar, to unlock the portal of a new 
Swedish Empire in the West. 

I>ut the natural affection of a sun of this region and an heir of 



' 



100 THE SCENERY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

these memories, lias led me away from the mountains, where we shall 
find a wholly different sentiment expressed in the scenery. Never 
rising to such a height as to give the impressions of power and sub- 
limity which we receive from grander ranges, the Alleghanies still 
possess a fresh and picturesque beauty of their own. They are never 
monotonous, even where, as in the southern part of the State, they 
are drawn into long parallel ridges of level outline, inclosing broad 
valleys between their bases. The unpruned wildness of the forests 
with which they are clothed condensates the eye for the absence of 
cliff, and scar, and spiry pinnacle of naked rock ; while the waters of 
the Susquehanna and its tributatries, most of which break through 
them abruptly, at right angles to their course, give a constant variety 
to their landscapes. The height of the principal chains varies from 
two to three thousand feet above the sea. In the northern part the 
mountains are steep and abrupt, with sharp crests, and occasionally a 
notched and jagged outline. Sharp Mountain, near Pottsville, has 
along its summit a thin vertical stratum of rock, like a comb or crest, 
so narrow that one may bestride it in many places. On the other side 
of the coal-fields, however, and fronting this ridge, rises Broad Moun- 
tain, whose summit is a nearly level plain. 

The principal ranges in the south have this latter conformation, 
and their summits are here and there inhabited and cultivated, though, 
at such a height above the sea, the crops are necessarily scanty. The 
old stage route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh — still travelled by 
drovers and their herds of Western stock for the markets of the East 
— is one of the most picturesque highways in the United States. Its 
course for a hundred miles is over these mountains, crossing valleys 
from ten to twenty miles in width, and climbing the ridges by straight 
and slowly ascending lines to the pure atmosphere of the summit plain 
and the splendid landscape which it commands. Leaving the bewil- 



THE s < l x ]•: K V OF PENNSYLVANIA. 1 < » 1 

dering view behind him, the traveller is soon whirled on to the oppo- 
site brink, \\ here he loi ks dew d on another hazy realm of streams and 
forests, villages and embowered homesteads, bounded by another blue 
and far-stretching rampart, where a white thread, that seems to have 
Keen dropped slanthj along the side, marks the further course of his 
journey. But he is allowed no time to revel in the suggestions of thai 
airy vision; the horses' feel have touched the descending grade ; they 
break into a headlong gallop and hurl him downwards into the forest. 
Down, down, like wild steeds let Loose on a prairie; for the stage rolls 
by its own weight, and there can be no pause in the mad career. The 
pine spreads out its arms to catch him, but lie shoots past, careless of 
the dew it dashes in his face. The mountain drops into a cliff and a 
gulf yawns on one sulo ; the dust of his passage rolls over the brink, 
hut he does not stay. And so, for miles down that interminable slope, 
till the horses are reined up, panting and smoking, on the level of the 
valley. 

Tin' upper region of the Alleghanies, if it has no such imposing 
sweeps of landscape and cannot afford such exciting passages of travel, 
is nioiv broken and rugged. The regularity of the chain ceases ; the 
mountains are more involved and irregular, and many of the rivers 
are real labyrinths of scenery, perpetually unfolding in some new and 
unexpected combination. From the dome of the State House at Ilar- 
risburg the entrance to the Highlands of the Susquehanna — the gap 
where the river forces its way through the Blue Ridge, is seen in the 
distance. Thence, to all the sources of the river and those of all its 

tributaries, it never h>s ( > s sight of the Alleghanies. They step across 
it as a harrier and break it into rapids; they run by its side and ti\ 
to shadow it into insignificance; the)- stretch away and look at it from 
the horizon ; — hut it is a child of their-, and is never so wild and tree 
and beautiful a- when in their company. It is not to !»• compared 



102 TBE SCENERY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

with any foreign river. It is infinitely more grand and inspiring than 
the Moselle or the Mense ; it is brighter and fresher than the Rhone, 
and the character of its scenery is totally different. Although the 
canal-boat has invaded its primitive silence, it is a picturesque innova- 
tion, and the mountains could not call to each other in a more fitting 
voice than is given them by the boatman's bugle, pealing through the 
morning mists. 

In the heart of the Susquehanna's realm, there are many spots, the 
record of whose beauty has not yet been wafted over the tops of the 
mountains that inclose them. Everybody knows the name of Wyo- 
ming, but few — outside of Pennsylvania, at least — have heard of the 
Half-Moon Valley in Centre county, or the mountain wildernesses of 
Clinton and Clearfield ; and though the Juniata, so far as its course 
has been made the State's highway, is a beaten track, yet its upper 
waters flow through many a scene of sequestered loveliness. The pre- 
vailing characteristic of the river is its picturesque beauty, of which 
the scene chosen by Mr. Tall >ot in the accompanying engraving is an 
admirable exemplar. Here is nothing grand or aAve-inspiring. The 
outlines of the mountain in the background, though clearly drawn in 
the serene air, are soft, graceful and suggestive only of repose ; the 
nearer crags, though bluff and rude, are mantled with foliage, and the 
quiet curve of the transparent water, touched with the gleam of a 
pigmy sail in the distance, whispers of other nooks and more beautiful 
retreats, far away in the silent solitudes of the hills. The freshness of 
these scenes has not yet departed ; the dew of the virgin Continent is 
still moist upon them. The antlered deer track the mazes of their 
forests and the black bear makes his winter couch in then- deepest and 
loneliest nooks. 

Leaving this enchanting region and crossing the wild and half- 
settled tract, which extends through the counties of Clearfield, Elk 



THE SCENERY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 103 

and Forest — a cold, central table-land, twelve or fifteen hundred feel 
above the sea -we reach the Northern agricultural district of the 
State. In its elevation, its frequent lakes, it- innumerable streams, 
and the general character of its soil, this countrj resembles the Lake 
district of Central New-York. The vegetation is no longer so warm 
and luxuriant as on the Delaware; the oak, hemlock and pine supplant 
the tulip-tree and the linden, and the maize no longer thrusts up such 
tall spears and shakes such lusty tassels in the breeze. But the 
region, nevertheless, has a hold, fresh, vigorous beauty of its own. 
It is inured to cold winds and keen winters, and if its landscapes 
ever look bleak, it is that bracing bleakness which exhilarates and 
strengthens. 

Here our tour is at an end ; we pass the large, clear lakes, most 
beautiful under a cloudless autumnal sky ; we pass the farms, the trim 
villages, the pine-crested hills ; and, after leaving the Alleghanies, 
three days on one of the strong-limbed horses of the country brings 
as within sight of the silver horizon-line and hearing of the silver surf 
of Lake Erie. 



THE INCH LA N I) TERRACE \l!<>\ i; \\ KST POINT. 



B V N . PA l: K E R W i [/LIS, 



I NT RODUOTION. 



There are threi compulsory and unnatural residents in cities, whom 
the improvements of the age are aboul to se1 at liberty. Bui for the 
inconveniences of distance, Taste, Study, am> Luxury, would cave 
never lived wtllingly i n streets. Silently and insensibly, how- 
ever, differenl parts of the countrj have become as accessible as diffe- 
rent parts of the (own. It would be 9afe, perhaps, to Baj that every 
thing thai is within an hour's reach, is sufficiently a1 hand; and Eng- 
lish rail-trains now travel regularly sixtj miles an hour, fifty miles 
from New-Yorl$ will soon be uear enough to its amusements, society 
and conveniences a1 least, for the greater portion of the year ; and, 
on the day when this fad shall be recognized, New-Yorkers will be 
ready for a Btartling and mos1 revolutionizing change, \ix: Ihhik* in 
iln country and lodgings in town, instead of hunt** in town andlodg- 
in the country. Industry, necessity, or vice, could alone prefer a 
house in a "block," among disturbances and gutters, to a home unen 
croached upon, amid fresh air and gardens. Taste, Study, and Luxury, 
we repeat, are aboul removing to the country. 
II 



106 THE HIGHLAND TEERACE. 

It will be observed that we anticipate a general preference, only 
for such rural life as leaves the pleasures and advantages of a city 
within reach. To be too far in the country, is, for many reasons, a 
dangerous as well as unpleasant removal from liberalizing and general- 
izing influences. Its effect on the mind is, perhaps, ultimately, the 
more important consideration — for it must be a very self-sufficing and 
anaSsimilating character that does not narrow and grow egotistic with 
limited associations and intercourse — but its effect on the sensitive- 
ness as to mental liberty and social position, is sooner to be consider- 
ed ; for, there is no tyranny like that which is occasionally found in a 
small village, and no slavery like the efforts sometimes necessary to 
preserve the good will of small neighborhoods. Country life, even 
with its best natural charms and advantages, is a doubtful experiment 
of happiness, unless your main dependence for reciprocity, society and 
amusements, is beyond the reach of local jealousies and caprices. The 
great charm of a city is the freedom between neighbors as to any 
obligation of acquaintance, and the power to pick friends and make 
visits without fear of offending those not picked nor visited. With 
the city not farther off than an hour or two hours of locomotion, this 
privilege can he reasonably and harmlessly asserted in the country; 
and, with theatres, concerts, galleries of art, churches and promenades 
also within reach, the advantages of hoth town and country life are 
combined, while the detects of hoth are modified or avoided. It is 
with reference to a new era of outer life, therefore — science having so 
far reduced distance that we may mix town and country life in such 
proportion as 'pleases us — -that we propose to describe a locality 
where residence, with this view, would he most desirable for New- 
Yorker-. 



1 II E II 1 G II I. \ \ l> TE RRACE. Id 1 ; 



DESCRIPTION. 



Wes1 Point is Nature's Northern Gate to New-York City. A- 
-""ii as our rail-trains -hall equal those of England, and travel fifty or 
sixty miles an hour, the Hudson, as far as Wesl Point, will be but a 

fifty-mile extension of Broadway. The river-banks will have bee e 

a suburban avenue- -a long street of villas, whose busiest residenl 
will We content that the City Hall is within an hour of his door. 
From this metropolitan avenue into the agricultural and rural region, 
the outlet will lie at the city'- Northern (iate, of West Point — a gate 
whose threshold divides Sea-board from In-land, and whose mountain 
pillars were heaved up with the changeless masonry of Creation. 

The passage through the Mountain-Gate of West Point is a three- 
mile Labyrinth, whose clue-thread is the channel of the river — a 
complex wilderness, of romantic picturesqueness and beauty, which 
will yet lie the teeming Switzerland <>t' our country's Poetrj and Pen- 
cil and, at the upper and northern outlet of this labyrinthine portal 
of the city, there is a formation of hill- which has an expression of 
most apt significance. // loofoslifa a gestun of welcome from Natwe, 
Km! 1/1/ invitation to />><'/■■ around you ! From the shoulder-like bluff 
upon the river, an outspreading range of Highlands extend- hack, 
Ufa flu curvi of a wavvng arm — the single mountain of Shaw angunk, 
(connected with the range by a vallej like the bend of a graceful 
w ri-t |, forming fli< liand at tlu extremity. It is of the area within the 
curve of this bended arm -a Highland Terrace of ten or twelve 
miles square, on the Wes1 Bani of the river — that we propose to de- 
line the capabilities, and probable destiny. 

The Highland Terrace we speak of ten miles square, and lying 
within the curve of this outstretched arm of mountains ha- an ave- 
rage level of about one hundred and twenty feel above the river. It 



108 THE HIGHLAND TERRACE. 

was early settled ; and, the rawness of first clearings having long ago 
disappeared, the well-distributed second ivoods are full grown, and 
stand, undisfigured by stumps, in park-like roundness and maturity. 
The entire area of the Terrace contains several villages, and is divided 
up into cultivated farms, the walls and fences in good condition, the 
roads lined with trees, the orchards full, the houses and barns suffi- 
ciently hidden with foliage to be picturesque — ■ the whole neighbor- 
hood, in fact, within any driving distance, quite rid of the angularity 
and well-known ungracefuluess of a newly-settled country. 

Though the Terrace is a ten-mile plain, however, its roads are re- 
markably varied and beautiful, from the curious multiplicity of deep 
git ns. These are formed by the many streams which descend from 
the half-bowl of mountains enclosing the plain, and — their descent 
being rapid and sudden, and the river into which they empty being 
one or two hundred feet below the level of the country around — ■ they 
have gradually worn beds much deeper than ordinary streams, and 
are, from this and the character of the soil, unusually picturesque. At 
every mile or so, in driving which way you will, you come to a sudden 
descent into a richly wooded vale — a bright, winding brook at bot- 
tom, and romantic recesses constantly tempting to loiter. In a long 
summer, and with perpetual driving over these ten-mile interlacings of 
wooded roads and glens, the writer dady found new scenery, and 
heard of beautiful spots, within reach and still unseen. From every 
little rise of the road, it must be remembered, the broad bosom of the 
Hudson is visible, with foreground variously combined and broken; 
and the lofty mountains, (encircling just about as much scenery as the 
eye can compass for enjoyment), form an ascending background </>i<l 
a new horizon which are hardly surpassed in the world for boldness 
and beauty. To what degree sunsets and sunrises, clouds, moonlight, 
and storms, are aggrandized and embellished by this peculiar forma- 



i ii E 11 io u LAND t i: i: i: a E. L09 

fcion of country, any studeul and Lover of nature will at once under- 
stand. Life may be, outwardly, as much more beautiful, amid suet 
scenery, as action amid the scenerj of a stage is mere dramatic than 
in an unfurnished room. 



LOCAL ADVANTAGES. 

The accessibilities from Highland Terrace arc very desirable. 
West Point is perhaps a couple of miles below, by the river bank ; 
and, though mountain-bluffs and precipices now cut off the following 
of this line by land, a road lias Keen surveyed and commenced alon-- 
the base of Cro'nest, which, when completed, will be one of the most 
picturesque drives in the world. A part of it is to be Mown out from 
the face of the rock ; and, as the lofty eminences will almost com- 
pletely overhang it, nearly the whole road will be in shade in the 
afternoon. To pass along this romantic way for an excursion to the 
superb military grounds of West Point, and to have the parades and 
music within an easy drive, will be certainly an unusual luxury for a 
country neighborhood. The communication is already open for 
vehicles, by means of a steam terry, which runs between Cornwall 
Landing (at the fool of the Terrace), and Cold Spring and the Mili- 
tary Wharf — bringing these three beautiful spots within a \\ i \v 
minutes' reach of each other — Morris the song-writer's triple-view 
site of " Undercliff," by the way, overlooking the central of these 
I tighland-Ferry Landings. 

It may be a greater or less attraction to the locality of the Ter- 
race, but it is no disadvantage, a1 Least, that three of the besl fre- 
quented summer resorts are within an afternoon drive of any part of 
it — the West Point Hotkl, Cozzens's, which is a mile below, and 
Powelton House, which is five or six miles above the Point, at New- 



HO THE HIGHLAND TERRACE. 

burgh. For accessibility to these fashionable haunts of strangers and 
travellers, and the gayeties and hospitalities for which they give oppor- 
tunity ■ — for enjoyment of military shows and music — for all manner 
of pleasure excursions by land and water, to glens and mountain-tops, 
fishing, hunting, and studying of the picturesque — Highland Terrace 
will prol >ably be a centre of attraction quite unequalled. 

The river-side length of the Terrace is about live miles — Corn- 
wall at one end and Newbukgii at the other. At both these 
places there are landings for the steamers, and from both these are 
steam-ferries to the opposite side of the river, bringing the fine neigh- 
borhoods of Fishskill and Cold Spring within easy reach. New- 
burgh is the metropolis of the Terrace — with its city-like markets, 
hotels, stores, trades and mechanic arts — -an epitome of New- York 
convenience within the distance of an errand. Downing, one of our 
most eminent horticulturists, resides here, and Powell, one of the most 
enterprising of our men of wealth ; and, along one of the high ac- 
clivities of the Terrace, are the beautiful country seats of Durand, our 
first landscape painter ; Miller, who has presented the neighborhood 
with a costly and beautiful church of stone, Verplanck, Sands, and 
many others whose taste in grounds and improvements adds beauty 
to the river drive. 

To the class of seekers for sites of rural residence, for whom we are 
drawing this picture, the fact that the Terrace is beyond svbv/rban dis- 
tance from JYew- York, will be one of its chief recommendations. 
What may be understood as "Cockney annoyances" will not reach 
it. But it will still be sufficiently and variously accessible from the city. 
On its own side of the river there is a rail-route from Newburgh to 
Jersey City, whose first station is in the centre of the Terrace, at 
"Vail's Gate," and by which New- York will eventually be brought 
within two hours or less. By the two ferries to the opposite side of 



r in: ii n, n i. \ \ n i i: i: 1: a o E. I I 1 

the river, the stations of the Hudson Railroad are also accessible, 
brinerinff the citv within equal time on another route. 'I he many 
boats upon the river, touching a1 the two landings at all hours of daj 
and night, enable you to varj the journey to and fro, with sleeping, 
reading, or tranquil enjoyment of the scenery. Friends may come to 
vim with positive luxury of locomotion, and without fatigue; and the 
monotonj of access to a place of residence by any one conveyance — 
an evil verj commonly complained of — is delightfully removed. 

There is a \er\ important advantage of the Highland Terrace, 
which we have uot ye1 named. It is tin spot on the Hudson where tlu 
two greatest thoroughfares of tht North art to cross each other. The 
intended route from Boston to Lake Erie, here intersects the rail-and- 
river routes between New-York and Albany. Coming by Plainfield 
and Hartford to FishMll, it here takes t'eny to Newburgh, and tra- 
verses the Terrace by the connecting link already completed to the 
Erie Railroad — thus bringing Boston within six or eight hours of 
this portion of the river. Western and Eastern travel will then be 
direct from this spot, like Southern and Northern ; and Albany and 
New-York, Boston and Buffalo, will be four points, all within reach 
of an easj excursion. 

To many, the mosl essential charm of Highland Terrace, however, 
(as a rural residence in connection with life in New-York), will be 
the fact that it is the nearest accessible point of compleU inland climate. 
Medical science tells ns that nothing is more salutary than change from 
the seaboard to the interior, or from the interior to the seaboard ; and. 
between these two climates, the ridge of mountains at Wes1 Poinl 
is the first effectual separation. 

The raw east winds of the coast, so unfavorable to some con- 
stitutions, -Avr stopped by this wall of cloud-touching peak-, and, 
with the rapid facilities of communication between salt and fresh air, 



112 THE HIGHLAND TERRACE. 

the balance can be adjusted without trouble or inconvenience, and as 
much taken of either as is found healthful or pleasant. The trial of 
climate which the writer has made, for a long summer, in the neigh- 
borhood of these mountainous hiding-places of electricity, the improve- 
ment of health in his own family, and the testimony of many friends 
who have made the same experiment, warrant him in commending it 
as a peculiarly salutary and invigorating air. 

We take pains to specify, once more, that it is to a certain class, 
in view of a certain new phase of the philosophy of life, that these re- 
marks are addressed. For those who must be in the city late and 
early on any and every day, the distance will be inconvenient, unless 
with unforeseen advances in the rate of locomotion. For those who 
require the night and day dissipations of New-York, ami who have 
no resources of their own, a nearer residence might also be more 
desirable. For mere seekers of seclusion and economy, it is too near 
the city, and the neighborhood would lie too luxurious. But, for 
those who have their time in some degree at their own disposal — 
who have competent means or luxurious independence — who have 
rural tastes and metropolitan refinements rationally blended — who 
have families which they wish to surround with the healthful and ele- 
gant belongings of a home, while, at the same time, they wish to keep 
pace with the world, and enjoy what is properly and only enjoyable 
in the stir of cities — for this class — the class, as we said before, made 
up of Leisure, llefinemeut and Luxury — modern and recent changes 
are preparing a new theory of what is enjoyable in life. It is a mix- 
ture of city and country, with the home in tlte country. And the spot 
with the most advantages for the first American trial of this new com- 
bination, is, we venture confidently to record, the HIGHLAND 
terrace encircled in the extended arm of the mountains 
a hove West Point. 



WA-W A -VAN -I) A II LAKE, NEW JERSEY. 



(C RO PS ET.) 

W \-\\ \-van-daii Lake is situated on the Wa-wa-yan-dah Mountains, in 
tli,' township of Vernon, Sussex county, New Jersey, about three and 
a half miles from the boundary between New York and .New Jersey, 
and about two miles from the line between Sussex and Passaic coun- 
ties. The word "Wa-wa-yan-dah," in the Indian language, means 
" Winding Stream," so that both the lake and the mountain derive 
their name from this — the Lake and Mountain of the Winding 
Stream. The outlel of the lake after winding in various directions 

empties in the Wall-kill. The lake is called by the settlers on the 

mountain, the "Double Pond," from the fact that an island nearly 
separates it into two ponds; the water i> of greal depth, \'r<\ bj cold 
springs, and produces \ erj tine trout. 

An old man, named Jeremiah Edes, who formerly Lived near the 
Lake, tells of an old German, who came there with a tradition handed 

down to him fr his grandfather, that a win of precious ore existed 

near a lake, which answered to the description of this one; which ore 
he was to seek for between four t rees, near the hank ; that he, Edes, 

I 



114 WA-WA-YAN-DAII LAKE. 

assisted tlie German in his search, which after several months resulted 
in the discovery of some shining metal, of which the German took 
several lumps back to Germany, after carefully hiding the spot, and 
binding Edes, by a solemn oath, not to reveal the place. 

The lake is about one mile in extent, either way — it is about fif- 
teen miles from the Chester Depot of the New York and Erie Rail- 
road, and is usually visited from this place or from Greenwood Lake. 

To the above description, kindly furnished by a friend, we add an 
extract from a letter from Mr. Cropsey, the artist whose picture we 
have copied : — 

" The country is mountainous and covered mostly by forests ; but 
the little ridges and valleys that he between the mountains are culti- 
vated ; farmhouses dot them here and there, amid apple orchards and 
luxuriant meadows — brooks wind through the meadows or ' linger 
with many a fall' down the wooded hill-side, sustaining here and there a 
mill, and then loosing themselves in some swamp, or spreading out in 
some placid little lake or pond. All the country, as I passed along, was 
highly picturesque, possessing to a great extent the wild beauty of the 
Catskill and White Mountain country, combined with the tame and 
cultivated Orange county, next which it lies. 

"Near the lake, and supplied by its water, is an iron work 
with a pretty clearing in the woods around — with numerous neat 
little cottages for the workmen — a store — the manager's house, 
and all that kind of incident that indicates a new-made but 
flourishing place. Upon the high ground near by, and near where 
my view was taken, can be seen beyond the Sha-wan-gunk Mountains 
the Catskills, and from another position not far distant is distinctly 
seen Mount Adam and Mount Eve." 



OVER THE MOUNTAINS, 01! THE WESTERN PIONEER. 



BY II i: N l; y T. T U C K E R M A N . 

The peculiar beauty of American mountains is rather incidental than 
intrinsic; we seldom gaze upon one with the delight awakened by an 
individual charm, 1 ait usually <>ii account of its grand effect as part of 
a vasl landscape. Our scenery is on so large a scale as to yield sub- 
lime rather than distinct impressions; the artist feels that it is requi- 
site to -elect and combine the materials afforded by uature, in order to 
produce an effective picture; ami although our countiy is unsurpassed 
in bold and lovely scenes, no ordinary patience and skill are needed 
to choose adequate subjects for the pencil. The outline of the moun- 
tains i- almost invariably rounded ; the peaks of Alpine summits ami 
the graceful linear curves of die Apennines render them far more pic- 
turesque. A- we stand on the top of Mount Washington, or the Cat- 
skill-, the very immensity of the prospect renders it too vague for the 
limner; it inspires the imagination more frequently than it satisfies 
the eye. Indeed, general effect is the characteristic of American sce- 
ner\ ; the levels are diffused into apparently boundless prairies, and 
the elevations spread in grand bu1 monotonous undulations ; only here 



116 OVER THE MOUNTAINS. 

and there a nook or a ridge, a spur, a defile or a cliff, forms the nucleus 
for an impressive sketch, or presents a cluster of attractive features 
limited enough in extent to be aptly transferred to canvas. " High 
mountains are a feeling;" hut here it is liable to be expansive rather 
than intense. The AHeghanies stretch inimitably, and, as it were, 
beckon forward the enthusiastic wanderer, while the Alps visibly soar 
and lure him upward ; amid the latter he has but to look through the 
circle of his hand to behold a picture, while the former awaken a sense 
of the undefined and limitless, and thus break up continually the per- 
ception of details. It is remarkable, however, that about the centre 
of the range, where it intersects the western part of North Carolina, 
the summits are peaked like the Alps, and are disposed waywardly 
like the Apennines. Here, too, the French Broad river, as it winds 
along the turnpike for the distance of forty miles, although not navi- 
gable, is highly picturesque on account of its numerous rapids and the 
bluffs that line its course ; and, while the autumnal frost jn'oduces no 
such gorgeous tints in the foliage around as make the western woods 
radiant with crimson and gold, the profusion and variety of the ever- 
greens, render the winter landscape far more attractive. 

A similar discrepancy attaches to the moral ass< >eiation of moun- 
tains at home and abroad. We follow the track of invading hosts as 
we cross the Alps, and are thus haunted by memorable events in the 
history of civilization amid the most desolate heights of nature; every 
fastness of the Apennines has its legend of Scythian, Gaul, or Roman, 
and each base its Etrurian sepulchre. The chief moral interest belong- 
ing to the AHeghanies is that derived from the fact that they consti- 
tute the natural boundary of the old and new settlements of the conti- 
nent. The memory of the Indian, the hunter, and especially the pio- 
neer, consecrate their names; and as Ave contemplate a view taken at 
the picturesque locality before alluded to, and illustrated by the an- 



OVER I II I. MOUNTAINS. I 1 7 

nexed landscape, we naturally revert to the brave and original man 
who thence wenl " over the mountains," to clear a pathway, build a 
lodge, and found a Stale in the wilderness. 

There hung, for many months, on the walls of the Art-Union gal- 
lerj in New-York, a picture bj Ranney, so thoroughly national in its 
subject and true to nature in its execution, that it was refreshing to 
contemplate it, after being wearied with far more ambitious yet less 
successful attempts. It represented a flat ledge of rock, the summit 
of a high cliff thai projected over a rich, umbrageous country, upon 
which a band of hunters leaning on their rifles, were gazing with looks 
of delighted surprise. The foremost, a compact and agile, though not 
\ei_\ commanding figure, is pointing out the landscape to his comrades, 
with an air of exultant yet calm satisfaction ; the wind lifts his thick 
hair from a brow full of energy and perception; his loose hunting 
shirt, his easy attitude, the fresh brown tint of his cheek, and an in- 
genuous, cheerful, determined yet benign expression of countenance, 
proclaim the hunter and pioneer, the Columbus of the woods, the 
foresl philosopher and brave champion. The picture represents 
Daniel Boone discovering to his companions the fertile levels of Ken- 
tucky. This remarkable man, although he does not appear to have 
originated any great plans or borne the responsibility of an appointed 
leader in the warlike expeditions in which he was engaged, possessed 
one of those rarebj balanced natures, and that unpretending efficiency 
of character which, though seldom invested with historical promi- 
nence, abound in personal interest. Without political knowledge, he 
sustained an infant settlement; destitute of a military education, he 
proved one of the most formidable antagonists the Indians ever en- 
countered; with no pretensions to a knowledge of civil engineering, 
he laid out the firsl road through the wilderness of Kentucky ; unfa- 
miliar with books, he reflected deeply and attained to philosophical 



118 OVEll THE MOUNTAINS. 

convictions that yielded him equanimity of mind ; devoid of poetical 
expression, he had an extraordinary feeling for natural beauty, and 
described his sensations and emotions, amid the wild seclusion of the 
forest, as prolific of delight ; with manners entirely simple and unob- 
trusive, there was not the least rudeness in his demeanor ; and relent- 
less in fight, his disposition was thoroughly humane ; his rifle and his 
cabin, with the freedom of the woods, satisfied his wants ; the sense 
of insecurity in which no small portion of his life was passed, only 
rendered him circumspect ; and his trials induced a serene patience and 
fortitude ; while his love of adventm'e was a ceaseless inspiration. Such 
a man forms an admirable progenitor in that nursery of character — 
the West ; and a fine contrast to the development elsewhere induced 
by the spirit of trade and political ambition ; like the rudely sculp- 
tured calumets picked up on the plantations of Kentucky- — memorials 
of a primitive race, whose mounds and copper utensils yet attest a 
people antecedent to the Indians that fled before the advancing settle- 
ments of Boone — his character indicates for the descendants of the 
hunters and pioneers, a brave, independent and noble ancestry. Thus, as 
related to the diverse forms of national character in the various sections 
of the country, as well as on account of its intrinsic attractiveness, the 
western pioneer is an object of peculiar interest ; and the career of 
Boone is alike distinguished for its association with romantic adventure 
and historical fact. 

A consecutive narrative however would yield but an ineffective 
picture of his life as it exists in the light of sympathetic reflection. The 
pioneer, like the mariner, alternates between long uneventful periods 
and moments fraught with excitement ; the forest, like the ocean, is mo- 
notonous as well as grand ; and its tranquil beauty, for weeks together, 
may not be sublimated by terror; yet in both spheres there is an 
undercurrent of suggestive life, and when the spirit of conflict and 



V E i: Til E MOD \ T A INS. | |'.i 

vigilance sleeps, that of contemplation is often alive. Perhaps it is 

this very successi I' " moving accident-" ami lonely quiet, of solemn 

repose and intense activity, that constitute- the fascination which the 
sea and the wilderness possess for imaginative minds. They appeal 
at once t<> poetical and heroic instincts; and these arc more fre- 
quently combined in the same individual, than we usually suppose. 
Before attempting to realize the characteristics of Boone in their unity, 
we musl note the salient points in his experience; and this is best 
done by revi\ ing a tew scene, which t\ pity the w hole drama. 

It is midnight in the forest; and, through the interstices of its 
thickly woven branches, pale moonbeams glimmer on the emerald 
sward. The only sounds that break upon the brooding silence, are an 
occasional gust of wind amid the branches of the loftier trees, the hoot- 
ing of an owl, and, sometimes, the wild crj of a beast disappointed of 
hi- prey, or scared by the dusky figure of a savage on guard at a 
watch-fire. Besides its glowing embers, and leaning against the huge 
trunk of a gigantic hemlock. -it two -ills whose complexion and habili- 
ments indicate their Anglo-Saxon origin; their hands are clasped 
together, and one appears to sleep as her head rests upon her com- 
panion's shoulders. They are very pale, and an expression of anxiety 
i- evident in tin' very firmness of their resigned looks. A slight 
rustle in the thick undergrowth near their camp, causes the Indian 
sentinel to rise quickly to hi- feet and peer in the direction of the 
sound; a moment after he leaps up, with a piercing shout, and falls 
Meed in-- upon the ground, while the crack of a rifle echoes through the 
wood; iji an instant twenty [ndians spring from around the fire, raise 
the war-whoop, ami brandish their tomahawks ; bu1 three or four in- 
Btantly drop before the deadly aim of the invaders, several run howl- 
ing with pain into the depths of the forest, and the remainder set oil' 
on an opposite trail. Then calmly, but with an earnest joy, revealed 



120 OVER THE MOUNTAINS. 

1 'V the dying flames upon his features, a robust, compactly knit figure, 
moves with a few hasty strides towards the females, gazes eagerly into 
their faces, lifts one in his arms and presses her momently to Lis breast, 
gives a hasty order, and his seven companions with the three in their 
midst, rapidly retrace their way over the tangled brushwood and amid 
the pillared trunks, until they come out, at dawn, upon a clearing, 
studded with enormous roots, among which waves the tasselled maize, 
beside a spacious log-dwelling surrounded by a palhsade ; an eager, 
tearful group rush out to meet them; and the weary and hungry band 
arc -nun discussing their midnight adventure over a substantial break- 
fast < >f same. Thus Boone rescued his daughter and her friend when 
they were taken captive by the Indians, within sight of his primitive 
dwelling ; — an incident which illustrates more than pages of descrip- 
tion, how closely pioneer presses upon savage life, and with what peril 
civilization encroaches upon the domain of nature 

It is the dawn of a spring day in the wildernes> ; as >teals the gray 
pearly light over the densely waving tree-tops, an eagle majestically 
rises from a withered bough, and floats through the silent air, beeoru- 
ing a mere speck on the >ky ere he disappears over the distant moun- 
tain- ; dew-drops are condensed on the green threads of the pine and 
the swollen buds of the hickory; pale bulbs and spears of herbage 
shoot from the black loam, amid the decayed leaves : in the inmo>t re- 
cesses of the wood, the rabbit's tread is audible, and the chirp of the 
squirrel; as the sunshine expand-, a thousand notes of birds at work 
on their nest-, invade the solitude ; tin.' bear fearlessly laps the running 
stream, and the elk turn- hi- graceful head from the pendant branch 
he is nibbling, at an unusual sound from the adjacent cane-brake; it is 
a lonely man rising from his night slumber; with his blanket on In- 
arm and his rifle grasped in one hand, he approaches the brook and 
bathes his head and neck; then glancing around, turns aside the in- 



V B i: I Hi: MOUNTAINS. 1 2 I 

terwoven thickets near by, and climbs a stony mound shadowed bj a 
fine clump of oaks, where stands an humble bu1 substantial cabin ; be 
lights a fire upon the flat stone before the entrance, kneads a cake of 
maize, while bis venison steak is broiling, and carefully examines the 
priming of his rifle; the meal dispatched with a hearty relish, he closes 
the door of bis lodge, and saunters through the wilderness; bis eye 
roves from the wild flower at his feet, to the cliff that looms afar off; 
he pauses in admiration before some venerable sylvan monarch, 
watches the bounding stag: his intrusion has disturbed, or cuts a little 
spray from the sassafras with the knife in bis girdle; as the sun rises 
higher, he penetrates deeper into the vast and beautiful forest ; each 
form of vegetable life, from the enormous fungi to the delicate vine- 
wreath, the varied structure of the trees, the cries and motions of the 
wild animals and birds, excite in his mind a delightful sense of infinite 
power and beauty; he feels, as be walks, in every nerve and vein the 
"glorious privilege of being independent;" reveries that bathe his 
soul in a tranquil yet lofty pleasure, succeed each other; and the 
sighl of seme lovely vista induces him to lie down upon a heap of 
dead leaves and lose himself in contemplation. Weariness andhunger, 
or the deepening gloom of approaching night, at length warn him 
to retrace his steps; on the way, he shoots a wild turkey for his 
supper, sits over the watch-fire, beneath the solemn firmamenl of 
stars, and recalls the absent and loved through the first watches of 
the night. .Months have elapsed since he has thus lived alone in the 
wilderness, his brother having left him to seek ammunition and pro- 
vision at distant settlements. Despondency, for awhile, rendered his 
loneliness oppressive, km such is his love of nature and freedom, 
his zest for life in the woods and a natural self-reliance, that gra- 
dually he attains a degree of happiness which De Foe's hero might 
have envied. Nature is a benign mother, and whispers consoling 

1(5 



1 2 2 < ) V E R T II E M O U N T A I N S . 

secrets to attentive ears, and mysteriously clieers the heart of her 
pine votaries who truthfully cast themselves on her bosom. Not thus 
serenely however glides away the forest life of our pioneer. He is 
jealously watched by the Indians, upon whose hunting-grounds he is 
encroaching; they steal upon his retreat and make him captive, and 
in this situation a new phase of his character exhibits itself. The soul 
that lias been in long and intimate communion with natural grandeur 
and beauty, and learned the scope and quality of its own resources, 
gains self-possession and foresight. The prophets of old did not resort 
to the desert iii vain; and the bravery and candor of hunters and sea- 
men is partly the result of the isolation and hardihood of their lives. 
Boone excelled as a sportsman; lie won the respect of his savage 
captors by his skill and fortitude; and more than once, without vio- 
lence, emancipated himself, revealed their bloody schemes to his couu- 
trymen, and met them on the battle-field, with a coolness and 
celerity that awoke their intense astonishment. Again and again, he 
saw his companions fall before their tomahawks and rifles; his 
daughter, as we have seen, was stolen from his very door, though 
fortunately rescued ; his son fell before his eyes in a conflict with the 
Indians who opposed their emigration to Kentucky; his brother and 
his dearest friends were victims either to their strategy or violence ; 
his own immunity is to lie accounted for by the influence he had ac- 
quired over his foes, which induced them often to spare his life — an in- 
fluence derived from the extraordinary tact, patience, and facility of 
action, which his experience and character united to foster. 

Two other scenes of his career are requisite to the picture. On 
the banks of the Missouri river, less than forty years ago, there stood 
a few small rude cabins in the shape of a hollow square; in one of 
these, the now venerable figure of the gallant hunter is listlessly 
stretched upon a couch; a slice of buck twisted on the ramrod of his 



<> V E i: T II K MOUNTAINS. 1 23 

rifle, is roasting by the fire, within reach of his hand; he is -till alone, 
luit the surrounding cabins arc occupied by his thriving descendants. 
The vital energies of the pioneer are gradually ebbing away, thoi 
his thick wliitc lucks, well-knit frame, and the light of his keen eye, 
evidence the genuineness and prolonged tenure of his life. Over- 
matched l'\ the conditions of the land law in Kentucky, and annoyed 
by the march of civilization in the regions he had known in their 
primitive beauty, he had wandered here, far from the state he founded 
and the haunts of his manhood, to die with the same adventurous and 
independent spirit in which he had lived. Tie occupied some of 
the irksome hours of confinement incident to age, in polishing his own 
cherrywood coffin ; and it is said lie was found dead in the woods at 
last, a tew rods from his dwelling. 

I >n an autumn day, six years since, a hearse might have keen seen 
winding up the main street of Frankfort, Kentucky, drawn by white 
horses, and garlanded with evergreens. The pall-bearers comprised 
some of the most distinguished men of the state. It was the second 
funeral of Daniel Boone. By an act of the legislature, his remains 
were removed from the banks of the Missouri to the public cemeterj 
of the capitol of Kentucky, and there deposited with every ceremonial 
of respeci and love. 

This oblation was in the highest degree just and appropriate, for 
the name of Boone is identified with the state he originally explored, 
and his character associates itself readily with that of her people and 

scenery. No part of the countrj is i 'e individual in these respects 

than Kentucky. As the word imports, it was at once the hunting and 
battle-ground of savage tribes for centuries; and not until the middle 
of the eighteenth century , was it well-known to Anglo-Saxon explorers. 
The elk and buffalo held undisputed possession with the Indian ; its 
dark forests served a- a contested boundary between the Cherokees, 



124 nVEl! THE MOUNTAINS. 

Creeks and Catawbas of tlie South, and the Shawnees, Delawares and 
Wyandots of the North ; and to these inimical tribes it was indeed " a 
dark and bloody ground." Unauthenticated expeditions thither we 
hear of before that of Boone, but with his first visit the history of the 
region becomes clear and progressive, remarkable for its rapid and 
steady progress and singular fortunes. The same year that Independ- 
ence was declared, Virginia made a county of the embryo state, and 
forts scattered at intervals over the face of the country, alone yielded 
refusre to the colonists from their barbarian invaders. In 1778, Du 
Qnesne, with his Canadian and Indian army, met with a vigorous re- 
pulse at Boonesborough ; in 1778, occurred Roger Clark's brilliant ex- 
pedition against the English forts of Vincennes ami Kaskaskias ; and 
the next year, a single blockhouse — the forlorn hope of advancing 
civilization — was erected by Robert Patterson where Lexington now 
stands; soon after took place the unfortunate expedition of Col. Bow- 
man against the Indians of Chilicothe ; and the Virginian legislature 
passed the celebrated land law. This enactment neglected to provide 
for a general survey at the expense of the government ; each holder of 
a warrant located therefore at pleasure, and made his own survey ; 
yet a special entry was required by the law in order clearly to de- 
signate boundaries; the vagueness of many entries rendered the titles 
null; those of Boone and men similarly unacquainted with legal 
writing, were, of course, destitute of any accuracy of description ; and 
hence interminable perplexity, disputes and forfeitures. The imme- 
diate consequences of the law, however, was to induce a flood of 
emigration; and the fever of land speculation rose and spread to an 
unexampled height; to obtain patents for rich lands became the ruling 
passion ; and simultaneous Indian hostilities prevailed — so that Ken- 
tucky was transformed, all at once, from an agricultural and hunting 
region thinly peopled, to an arena where rapacity and war swayed a 



VEE I II E M OUNTAINS. 1 l'< 

vasl multitude. The conflicts, law-suits, border adventures, and per- 
sonal feuds growing out of this condition of affairs, would yield memo- 
rable themes, without number, for the annalist. To lliis epoch suc- 
ceeded "a labyrinth of conventions." The position of Kentucky was 
anomalous; the appendage <>l' ;i state unable to protecl her frontier 
from savage invasion; her future prosperity in a greal measure de- 
pendent upon the glorious riser thai bounded her domain, and the 
United States governmenl already proposing to yield the righl of its 
navigation to a foreign power; separated by the Alleghany mountains 
from the populous and cultivated East; and the tenure by which 
estates were held within its limits quite unsettled, it is scarcely to be 
wondered at, that reckless political adventurers began to look upon 
Kentucky as a promising sphere for their intrigues. Without advert- 
ing to anj particular instances, or renewing the inquiry into the mo- 
tives of prominent actors in those scenes, it is interesting to perceive 
lmw entirely the intelligence and honor of the people triumphed over 
selfish ambition and cunning artifice. Foreign governments and 
domestic traitors failed in their schemes to alienate the isolated state 
from the growing confederacy ; repulsed as she was again and again 
in her attempts to secure constitutional freedom, she might have said 
to the parent government, with the repudiated "lady wedded to the 
Moor" — 

" LJnkindness may '1" much, 
And your unkinduess may achieve my life, 
I'.ui never taurl mj love." 

Kentucky was admitted into the Union on the fourth of Febru- 
ary, 1791. 

From this outline of her history, we can readily perceive how rich 
ami varied was the material whence has sprung the Western charac- 
ter; its highest phase is doubtless to be found in Kentucky ; and, in 



l'2(j OVEE THE MOUNTAINS. 

our view, best illustrates American in distinction from European 
civilization. In the North this is essentially modified by the cosmopo- 
lite influence of the seaboard, and in the South, by a climate which 
assimilates her people with those of the same latitudes elsewhere; but 
in the West, and especially in Kentucky, we find the foundation of 
social existence laid by the hunters — whose love of the woods, equality 
of condition, habits of sport and agriculture, and distance from con- 
ventionalities, combine to nourish independence, strength of mind, 
candor, and a fresh and genial spirit. The ease and freedom of social 
intercourse, the abeyance of the passion for gain, and the scope given 
to the play of character, accordingly developed a race of noble apti- 
tudes ; and we can scarcely imagine a more appropriate figure in the 
foreground of the picture than Daniel Boone, who embodies the 
honesty, intelligence, and chivabric spirit of the state. With a popu- 
lation descended from the extreme sections of the land, from emi- 
grants of New-England as well as Virginia and North Carolina, and 
whose immediate progenitors were chiefly agricultural gentlemen, a 
generous and spirited character might have been prophesied of the 
natives of Kentucky ; and it is in the highest degree natural for a peo- 
ple thus descended and with such habits, to cling with entire loyalty 
to their parent government, and to yield, as they did, ardent though 
injudicious sympathy to France in the hour of her revolutionary crisis. 
Impulsive and honorable, her legitimate children belong to the aris- 
tocracy of nature ; without the general intellectual refinement of the 
Atlantic states, they possess a far higher physical development and 
richer social instincts ; familiar with the excessive development of the 
religious and political sentiments, in all varieties and degrees, their 
views are more broad though less discriminate than those entertained 
in older communities. The Catholic from Maryland, the Puritan from 
Connecticut, and the Churchman of Carolina, amicably flourish to- 
gether; and the conservative and fanatic are alike undisturbed ; the 



(i V E i: I II K M01 N I A INS. 1-7 

convenl and the camp-meeting being, often within sighl of each other, 
equally respected. 

Nature, too, has been as Libera] as the social elements in endowing 
Kentucky with interesting associations. That mysterious fifteen miles 
of subterranean wonders known as the Mammoth Cave, its wonderful 
architecture, fossil remains, nitrous atmosphere, echoes, fish with only 
tli«' rudimenl of an optic nerve, — its chasms and cataracts -is one of 
the most remarkable objects in the world. The boundaries of the 
state arc unequalled in beauty; on the east the Laurel Ridge or Cum- 
berland Mountain, and on the wesl the Father of Waters. In native 
trees she is peculiarly rich — the glorious magnolia, the prolific sugar- 
tree, the laurel and the buckeye, the hickory and honey locust, the 
mulberry, ash, and flowing catalpa, attest in every village and road- 
side, the sylvan aptitudes of the soil; while the thick buffalo grass 
and finesl crown-imperial in the world, clothe it with a lovehj garni- 
ture. The blue limestone formation predominates, and its grotesque 
cliffs and caverns render much of the geological scenery peculiar and 
interesting. 

The lover of the picturesque and characteristic, musi often regrel 
that artistic and literarj genius has not adequately preserved the origi- 
nal local and social features of our own primitive communities. Facility 
of intercourse and the assimilating influence of trade are rapidly bring- 
ing the traits and tendencies of all parts of the country to a common 
level : yet in the natives of each section in whom strong idiosyncrasies 
have kept intact the original bias of character, we find the most striking 
and suggestive diversity. According to the glimpses afforded us bj 
tradition, letters, and a few meagre biographical data, the early settlers 
of Kentucky united to the simplicity and honesty of the New-York 
colonists, a high degree of chivalric feeling; there was an heroic vein 
induced by familiarity with danger, the necessity of mutual protection 
ami the healthful excitement of the chase. The absence of an} marked 



L28 ( ) V E R T 1 1 E MOUNTAINS. 

distinction of birth or fortune, and the high estimate placed upon 
society by those who dwell on widely separated plantations, caused a 
remarkably cordial, hospitable and warm intercourse to prevail, almost 
unknown at the North and East. Family honor was cherished with 
peculiar zeal; and the women accustomed to equestrian exercises and 
1 >r< »ught up in the freedom and isolation of nature — their sex always re- 
spected and their charms thoroughly appreciated — acquired a spirited 
and cheerful development quite in contrast to tin- subdued, uniform tone 
of those educated in the commercial towns ; their mode of life natu- 
rally generated self-reliance and evoked a spirit of independence. 
Most articles in use were of domestic manufacture; slavery was more 
patriarchal in its character than in the other states; the practice of 
duelling, with its inevitable miseries, had also the effect to give a cer- 
tain tone to social lite rarely witnessed in agricultural districts; and 
the Kentucky gentleman was thus early initiated into the manly 
qualities of a Nimrod and the engaging and reliable one of a man of 
honor and gallantry — in its best sense. It is to circumstances like 
these that we attribute the chivalric spirit of the state. She was a 
somewhat wild member of the confederacy — a kind of spoiled younger 
child, with the faults and the virtues incident to her age and fortunes ; 
nerved by long vigils at the outposts of civilization, — the wild cat in- 
vading her first school-houses and the Indians her scattered cornfields, 
—and receiving little parental recognition from the central govern- 
ment, — with a primitive loyalty of heart, she repudiated the intrigues 
of Genet and Burr, and baptized her counties for such national patriots 
as Fulton and Gallatin. Passing through a fiery ordeal of Indian 
warfare, the fever of land speculation, great political vicissitude, 
unusual legal perplexities, imperfect legislation, and subsequently 
entire financial derangement, — she has yet maintained a progressive 
and individual attitude; and seems to us, in her most legitimate 
specimens of character, more satisfactorily to represent the national 



V K i: T HE M o I NT A. INS. L29 

type, than anj other state. Her culture has qoI been as refined, nor 
her social spirit as versatile and elegant as in older communities, but a 
raciness, hardihood and genial freshness of nature have, for those verj 
reasons, more completely survived; as a region whence to transplant 
or graft, it' we maj applj horticultural terms to humanity, Kentuckj 
is a rich garden. Nor have these distinctions ceased to be. JI<t 
greatest statesman, in the nobleness of his character and the extraor- 
dinary persona] regard he inspires, admirably illustrates the community 
of which Boone was the characteristic pioneer ; and the volunteers of 
Kentucky, in the Indian wars, under Harrison, and more recently in 
Mexico, have continued to vindicate their birthright of valor; while 
one of her most accomplished daughters sends this year a magnificent 
bed-quilt, wrought by her own hands, to the World's Fair. 

A Pennsylvanian by birth, Boone early emigrated to North Caro- 
lina. He appears to have firsl visited Kentucky in 17G9. The 
bounty lands awarded to the Virginia troops induced surveying expe- 
dition-, to the Ohio river; and when Col. Henderson, in 1775, pur- 
chased from the Cherokees, the country south of the Kentucky river, 
the knowledge which two years exploration had given Boone of the 
region, and his already established reputation for firmness ami adven- 
ture, caused him to he employed to survey the country, the fertility 
and picturesque charm- of which had now become celebrated. Accord- 
ingly, the pioneer having satisfactorily laid out a road through the 
wilderness, not without manj fierce encounters with the Aborigines, 
chose a sp,,t to erect his log-house, which afterwards became the 
nucleus of a colony, and the germ of a prosperous State, on the site of 
the present town of Boonsborough. While transporting his family 
thither, thej were surprised by the Indians, and, after severe Loss, so 
far discouraged in their enterprise as to return to the nearest settle- 
ments; and on the firsl summer of their residence in Kentuckj oc- 



130 OVER THE MOUNTAINS. 

curred the bold abduction of the two young girls, to which we have 
previously referred. In 1778, while engaged in making salt with 
thirty men, at the lower Blue Licks, Boone was captured, and while 
his companions were taken to Detroit on terms of capitulation, he was 
retained as a prisoner, though kindly treated and allowed to hunt. At 
Chillieotlie he witnessed the extensive preparations of the Indians to 
join a Canadian expedition against the infant settlement ; and effecting 
his escape, succeeded in reaching home in time to warn the garrison 
and prepare for its defence. For nine days he was besieged by an 
army of five hundred Indians and whites, when the enemy abandoned 
their project in despair. In 1782 he was engaged in the memorable 
and disastrous battle of Blue Licks, and accompanied Gen. Clarke or. 
his expedition to avenge it. In the succeeding year, peace with Eng- 
land being declared, the pioneer saw the liberty and civilization of the 
country he had known as a wilderness, only inhabited by wild beasts 
and savages, guaranteed and established. In 1779, having laid out 
the chief of his little property in land warrants, — on his way from 
Kentucky to Richmond, he was robbed of twenty thousand dollars ; 
wiser claimants, versed in the legal conditions, deprived him of his 
lands ; disappointed and impatient, he left the glorious domain he had 
< iriginally explored and nobly defended, and became a voluntary sub- 
ject of the King of Spain, by making a new forest home on the banks 
of the Missouri. An excursion he undertook, in 181G, to Fort Osage, 
a hundred miles from his lodge, evidences the unimpaired vigor of his 
declining years. 

So indifferent to gain was Boone that he neglected to secure a tine 
estate rather than incur the trouble of a visit to New Orleans. An 
autograph letter, still extant, proves that he was not illiterate ; and 
Governor Dunmore of Virginia, had such entire confidence in his vigi- 
lance and integrity that he employed him to conduct surveyors eight 



OVER THE MOUNTAINS. 1.', 1 

hundred miles through the foresl fco the falls of the Ohio, gave him 
command of three frontier stations and sent him to uegotiate treaties 
with the Cherokees. It. was a fond boasl with him thai the firsl white 
women that ever stood on the banks of the Kentucky river, were his 
wife and daughter, and that his axe cleft the firsl tree whose timbers 
laid the foundation of a permanent settlement in the State; he had 
the genuine ambition of a pioneer and the native taste for life in the 
woods embodied in the foresters of Scott and the LeatherstocMne of 
Cooper. He possessed thai restless impulse — ■ the instinct of adventure 
-the poetry of action. It lias been justly said that "he was seldom 
taken by surprise, never shrunk from danger, nor cowered beneath ex- 
posure and fatigue." So accurate were his woodland observations and 
memory, that he recognised an ash tree which he had notched twenty 
years before, to identity a locality ; and proved the accuracy of his de- 
signation bj stripping oil' the new hark and exposing the marks of his 
axe beneath. Bis aim was so certain, that during lite, he could with 
ease bark a squirrel, that is, bring down the animal, when on the top 
of the loftiest tree, l>\ knocking ofi 7 the bark immediately beneath, kill- 
ing him by the concussion. 

The union of beauty and terror in the life of a pioneer, of so 

much natural courage and thoughtfulness as Boone, is one of its 
most significant features. We have followed his musing steps 
through the wide, umbrageous solitudes he loved, and marked the 
contentment he experienced in a log-hut and by a camp tire; but 

over this attractive picture there ever impended the shadow of peri] 
— in the form of ;i stealthy and cruel foe, the wolf, disease, and 
exposure to the element-. Enraged at the invasion of their ancient 
hunting-grounds, the Indians hovered near; while asleep in the 
jungle, following the plough, or at his frugal meal, the pioneer was 
liable to he shot down \<\ an unseen rifle, and surrounded by an 



132 OVER THE MOUNTAINS. 

ambush ; from tlie tranquil pursuits of agriculture, at any moment, he 
niight be summoned to the battle-field, to rescue a neighbor's property 
or defend a solitary outpost. The senses become acute, the mind vigi- 
lant, and the tone of feeling chivalric under such discipline. That life 
has a peculiar dignity, even in the midst of privation and however de- 
void of refined culture, which is entirely self-dependent both for sus- 
tainment and protection. It has, too, a singular freshness and anima- 
tion the more genial from I icing naturally inspired. Compare the 
spasmodic efforts at hilarity, the forced sjieech and hackneyed expres- 
sion of the fashionable drawing-room, with the candid mirth and gal- 
lant spirit bom of the woodland and the chase; — the powerful sinews 
and well-braced nerves of the. pioneer with the languid pulse of the 
metropolitan excpiisite ; — and it seems as if the fountain of youth still 
bubbled up in some deep recess of the forest. Philosophy, too, as well 
as health, is attainable in the woods, as Shakespeare has illustrated in 
" As You Like It ;" and Boone by his example and habitual senti- 
ments. He said to his brother, when they had lived for months in the 
yet unexplored wilds of Kentucky, " You see how little human nature 
requires. It is in our own hearts rather than in the things around us, 
that we are to seek felicity. A man may be happy in any state. It 
only asks a perfect resignation to the will of Providence." It is re- 
markable that the two American characters which chiefly interested 
Byron, were Patrick Henry and Daniel Boone — the one for his gift 
of oratory, and the other for his philosophical content — both so 
directly springing from the resources of nature. 

There is an affinity between man and nature which conventional 
habits keep in abeyance but do not extinguish. It is manifested in the 
prevalent taste for scenery, and the favor so readily bestowed upon its 
graphic delineation in art or literature ; but in addition to the poetic 
love of nature, as addressed to the sense of beauty, or that ardent 



\ \: i: 'i ii k MOUNTAINS. 1 33 

curiosity to explore it- laws and phenomena which finds expression in 
natural science, there is an instincl thai Leads to a keen relish of nature 
in her primeval state, and a facility in embracing the Life she offers in 
her wild and solitary haunts ; a feeling that seems to have survived 
the influences of civilization and developes, when encouraged, by the 
inevitable law of animal instinct. It is not uncommon to meet with 
this passion lor nature among those whose lives have been devoted to 
objects apparently alien to its existence; sportsmen, pedestrians, and 
citizens of rural propensities, indicate its modified action, while it is 
more emphatically exhibited by the volunteers who join caravans to 
the Rocky -Mountains, the deserts of the East and the forests of 
Central and South America, with no ostensible purpose bu1 Hie 
gratification arising from intimate contact with nature in her luxu- 
riant or barren solitudes. 

To one having but an inkling of this sympathy, with a nervous 
organization and an observant mind, there is, indeed, no restorative of 
the frame or sweet diversion to the mind like a day in the woods. 
The etfeet of roaming a treeless plain or riding over a cultivated region 
is entirely different. There is a certain tranquillity and balm in the 
foresl that heals and calms the fevered spirit and quickens the Languid 
pulses of the weary and disheartened with the breath of hope. lt> 
influence on the animal spirits is remarkable; and the senses, released 

fr the din ami monotonous limits of streets and houses, luxuriate in 

the breadth of vision and the rich variety of form, hue and odor which 

onl\ scenes like these afford. A.S you Walk in the shadow of l,it't\ 

trees, the repose and aw e of hearts that breathe from a sacred temple, 
gradually lull- the tide of care and exalts despondency into worship. 
A- your eye tracks the flickering lighl glancing upon the herbage, it 
brightens to recognize the wild-flowers that are associated with the 
innocent enjo\ ments of childhood ; to note the delicate blossom of the 



134 OVER THE MOUNTAINS. 

wild hyacinth, see the purple asters wave in the breeze, and the scarlet 
) terries of the winter-green glow among the dead leaves, or mark the 
circling flight of the startled crow and the sudden leap of the squirrel. 
You pause unconsciously to feel the springy velvet of the moss-clump, 
pluck up the bulb of the broad-leaved sanguinaria, or examine the star- 
like flower of the liverwort, and then lifting your gaze to the canopy 
beneath which you lovingly stroll, greet as old and endeared acquaint- 
ances the noble trees in their autumn splendor, — the crimson dogwood, 
yellow hickory or scarlet maple, whose brilliant hues mingle and glow 
in the sunshine like the stained windows of an old gothic cathedral ; 
and you feel that it is as true to fact as to poetry that "the groves 
were God's first temples." Every fern at your feet is as daintily 
carved as the frieze of a Grecian column ; every vista down which you 
look, wears more than Egyptian solemnity; the withered leaves rustle 
like the sighs of penitents, and the lofty tree-tops send forth a voice 
like that of prayer. Fresh vines encumber aged trunks, solitary leaves 
quiver slowly to the earth, a twilight hue chastens the brightness 
of noon, and, all around, is the charm of a mysterious quietude and 
seclusion that induces a dreamy and reverential mood ; while health 
seems wafted from the balsamic pine and the elastic turf, and over all 
broods the serene blue firmament. 

If such refreshment and inspiration are obtainable from a casual 
and temporary visit to the woods, we may imagine the effect of a length- 
ened sojourn in the primeval forest, upon a nature alive to its beauty, 
wildness and solitude ; and when we add to these, the zest of adventure, 
the pride of discovery and that feeling of sublimity which arises from 
a consciousness of danger always impending, it is easy to realize in the 
experience of a pioneer at once the most romantic and practical ele- 
ments of life. In our own history, rich as it is in this species of 
adventure, no individual is so attractive and prominent as Daniel 



OVEE THE MOUNTAINS. 135 

Boone. The singular anion in his character of benevolence and hardi- 

hood, hold activity and a meditative disposition, the hazardous enter- 
prises and narrow escapes recorded of him, and the resolute tact he 
displayed in all emergencies, arc materials quite adequate to a thrilling 
narrative; 1 nit when we add to the external phases of interest, that 
absolute passion for forest life which distinguished him, and the identity 
of hi- name with the earlj fortunes of the West, he seems to combine 
the essentia] features of a. genuine historical and thoroughly individual 
character. 



W EST ROC Iv, NEW II AVE X 



II Y M AMY E . FIELD. 



Conspicuous among the lovely places of New England is the elm- 
shaded city of New Haven. It is a city by virtue of its population 
and municipal regulations; but its rural appearance, — neat, unpre- 
tending homes, with their pleasant court-yards and tasteful gardens, 
open squares and streets overarched with trees, make one hesitate to 
give it a name associated with glare, and dust, and noise. 'Hie waters 
of Long Island Sound flow softly to its feet, and in the haven thus 
formed the mariner finds shelter from outside storms. 

The town is situated on a plain which opens northward into a 
beautiful valley, whose guarding hill-sides terminate in two rocky 
heights. When seen from the harbor below, these eminences seem 
near the city, and look like the sides of some huge portal thrown open 
in welcome to the traveller. They are known as East and West 

bock. 

It is one of these prominent and most picturesque objects, which the 
artist has chosen for hi- beautiful picture. How truthful are its outlines 
when compared with the scene in memory, daguerreotj ped there in those 

18 



138 W EST ROOK. 

summer days when the student goes to the woods with his books, — 
when the angler lies idle 1>\ the brook, — and the poet dreams to a 
tuneful measure as he gazes on the outline of hills, or watches the 
clouds which rest over them. There is the hold, red rock, a columned 
wall, — seamed and scarred, and piled up hall' its height with fragments 
of stone. There gleams a village spire above the trees; there are the 
river and meadow shadowed by summer clouds, and there the hay- 
makers gather their fragrant harvest. 

Bui West Rock has another interest. The artist here gives us not 
oul\ a beautiful and well-known scene, hut illustrates a passage in 
colonial history. That rugged pile recalls a story o\' trial and forti- 
tude, courage and magnanimity, the noblest friendship, and a fear- 
Less adherence to political principles from religious motives. 

There were troubled da_\s in England. The king had been false 
to his people, and had been adjudged the death o( a traitor. Then 
followed the brief rule of Cromwell, his death, and the restoration of 
the monarchy. The enthronement of Charles II. was the signal of 
flighl to those who acted as judges on the trial of his father. 

Two of these men, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, arrived at 
Boston the J T 1 1 1 of -luly, L660, in the very ship which brought the 
fust tidings oi' the Restoration. The) were particularly obnoxious to 
the new government from their relation-hip to Cromwell, their political 
influence in the late Commonwealth, the rank tiny had held in the 
armies of the Parliament, and the possession of eminent talents whose 
exercise might again endanger the monarchy. 

For a time the) were safe in Massachusetts, and it was hoped 
the) might be forgotten in the mother country and suffered to live in 
peace in these remote regions. But -when, some months later, an act 
of indemnity arrived, and these men were specially excluded from the 
general pardon, it became evident that royal vengeance would not 



H EST KOCK. 1 .",',1 

overlook theni. Still qo attenipl was made to arrest theiri until 
February, L661, when a warrant to thai effed arrived from England. 
Anticipating this, thej had lefl for Connecticul a Pevi days before, and 
the friendly officers of justice in Massachusetts were careful to look for 
them in another direction. 

Already had the good Davenport, minister of the New Eaven 
colony, prepared his people to receive them, teaching them to "Be 
no1 forgetful t<> entertain strangers;" to "Remember those in bonds as 
bound with them," ami citing for their direction such passages as 
"Makethj shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday; hide 
tin- outcasts; bewray not him that wandereth. Let mine outcasts 
dwell with thee, Moab ; l>e thou a coverl 1" them from the face of 
the spoiler." Thus taught, and the people "I' that colony were atten- 
tive to such instructions, thej were readj to give the fugitives efficienl 
protection. Etoyalisl officers pursued them, but the "noonday was 
night" around them. They had been seen at the house of Mr. Daven- 
port and elsewhere in town, bu1 search was always made lor them in 

the wrong place. 

At last, when no house could longer give them protection and 
their friends were endangered \>\ their presence, West Rock furnished 
them a refuge. < >n its summit there are large masses of stone 
irregularly thrown together, so that the apertures between furnish a 
recess or small cave, in which the wanderers hid themselves. Trees 
and bushes grew thick around, concealing the entrance. Thej were 
not forgotten in this retreat. Every day, ami often both morning and 
evening, a messenger ascended the height to carry them food, and 
thej were informed of all thai passed below. There thej were com- 
paratively safe; bu1 it was told them thai their tried friend, Mr. 
Davenport, was exposed to danger on their account, and though the 
certainty of a painful, humiliating death was before them, they de- 



140 WEST ROCK. 

mi in UmI to the town with the intention of surrendering them- 
selves to the royal officers. They preferred any suffering to the tran- 
sient peril of their friend. This danger was less alarming than they 
supposed, and they were persuaded to return to their cave. 

What weary days and nights passed over them in that solitude ! 
Those restless souls, nurtured to battle and the strife of political par- 
ties, so lately prominent in the terrible struggle at home, were here 
condemned to inaction, to the slow wearing out of life in loneliness 
and dread. They could look off' upon the waters, hut seldom came a 
vessel up that bay ; and when at rare intervals a white sail gleamed 
there, it only seemed to mock their impatience to know the tidings it 
brought, — too often saddest news for them. 

They could watch every approach to the mountain, and friends 
occasionally visited them there. Stories were long told of mysterious 
appearances on that height, — forms as of human beings seen in mist, 
hoveling over the edge of the precipice ; tales which have since 
resolved themselves into the morning or evening stroll on which the 
lonely outcasts ventured. The messenger who generally carried them 
food, was ignorant for whom it was intended. There was a strange 
mystery hi his errand, and he executed it with fear, thinking of appa- 
ritions the villagers had seen there. The emptied cloth or basket was 
always in its place, but no human being was visible. 

But the Cave ou West Rock had its own dangers. A security 
from pursuing men, there was no safety from the tenants of the forest. 
Wild beasts were around the fugitives. Roused at night by their 
howling or cries, and waked to see then' glaring eyeballs fixed upon 
them, they were forced to desert their mountain refuge, and again 
found a shelter among men. 

Years passed on. Search for them was relinquished at intervals 
only to be renewed with greater zeal ; but concealed in an inland vil- 



VV EST BOCK. Ill 

lage of Massachusetts,* uot all the officers of the crown could trace 
them out. There fchej died, bul their place of burial was kepi secret, 
Lesl their ashes should be dishonored. Later developments seem to 
prove their removal to New Haven, and the stranger standing on 
Wesl Rock is shown the church in whose shadow thej are believed 
tn lie buried. 

The panther no longer screams up that rocky height, and the 
woods art' cut away, but the "Judge's Cave 11 remains. High <>n its 
front some hand has recorded the political creed of the men who 
there suffered exile and persecution: " Opposition to tyrants is obe- 
dience to God." There may it remain, the epitaph of the " Regicides" 
as the Rock is their memorial! 



Hadley. 



T II E ERIE HAIL 110 A J) 



[See Title-page.) 



BY BAY A ltD T A V r, C) |{ . 



W'nii the rapid progress and wider development of the great loco- 
motive triumphs of the age, steam travel and steam navigation, the 
vulgar lament over their introduction is beginning to disappear. Sen- 
timental tourists who once complained that every nook where the 
poetry of the Past still lives — every hermitage of old and sacred 
associations would soon be invaded by these merciless embodiments 
of the Present and the Practical, are now quite content to take then- 
aid, wherever it may be had, between Ceylon and the North Cape. 
The shriek of the steam whistle is hardly as musical as the song of 
the sirens, and a cushioned car is not so romantic as a gondola, yet 
they pass Calypso's isle with the sound of one ringing in their ears, 
and ride into Venice over the bridged Lagunes in the other. The 
fact is, it was only the innovation which alarmed. Once adopted, its 
miracles of speed, comfort, and safety, soon silenced the repinings of 
those who depend on outward circumstances and scenes to give those 
blossoms of thought and sensation, which, without these, their minds 
are too barren to produce. We now more frequently hear of the 



144 THE ERIE RAILROAD. 

power and poetic mystery of the steam-engine. We are called upon 
to watch those enormous iron arms and listen to the thick throbbing 
of that unconscious heart, exerting the strength of the Titans and the 
Anakim to beat down the opposing waves and bear us forward in the 
teeth of the terrible winds. We have been told, till the likeness has 
grown commonplace, of the horse that, snorting fire and smoke from 
his nostrils, and his neck " clothed with thunder," skims over the plain 
and pierces the mountain's heart, outrunning the swift clouds and 
leaving the storm in his rear. We shall learn, ere long, that no great 
gift of science ever diminishes our stores of purer and more spiritual 
enjoyment, but rather adds to their abundance and gives them a 
richer zest. Let the changes that must come, come : and be sure they 
will bring us more than they take away. 

No similar work in the world could contribute more to make the 
Kail road popular with the class referred to, than the New- York and 
Erie Railroad. This is by far the most striking enterprise of the kind 
which has yet been completed. Exceeding in length any single road 
in the world, the nature of the country through which it passes, the 
difficulties to be overcome in its construction, and the intrinsic charac- 
ter of the work itself, invest it with an interest and grandeur which 
few mechanical enterprises of ancient or modern times possess. Its 
course represents, on a small scale, the crossing of a continent. It 
belts four dividing ridges of mountains, separating five different sys- 
tems of rivers and streams. From the level of tide-water at New- 
York, it rises to a height of 1,366 feet on crossing the main ridge of 
the Alleghanies, and yet throughout its whole extent of four hundred 
and fifty miles, there is neither an inclined plane nor a tunnel. The 
first direct line of communication between the Atlantic and the great 
Lakes of the North, it has brought them within the compass of a 
summer's day. The traveller who sees daybreak glimmer over the 



t u i: E i: i E i: a [LRO AD. 1 l"> 

waters of New-York Bay, maj watch the lasl tints of the sunsel -ink 
behind the horizon of Lake Erie. 

'I'll.' history "i' the Erie Railroad, is like thai of ;ill great under- 
takings. It began with :i failure; it ended with a triumph. The first 
charter for it- construction was granted in L832, fixing the >to<-k at 
ten millions of dollars, bul tor several years little was done excepl to 
survey the route. It was originally proposed to construct the road on 
piles instead of -olid embankments, and the ruins of many miles of 
such skeleton-work still stretch along the valley of the Canisteo. The 
difficulties whicb beset the enterprise during the first decade of its 
existence, were innumerable, and would have discouraged less coura- 
geous and less enthusiastic men than its projectors. The natural 
obstacles to lie overcome required an enormous outlay; the consent of 
Pennsylvania was t<> lie obtained to the building of those parts of the 
road which lay within her borders; owners of capital hesitated to 
invest it in an uncertain scheme; and to crown all, came the commer- 
cial revulsions of L837, which for a time prostrated it wholly. After 
the country had recovered from this shock, another effort was made. 
The State came to its relief, and after a season of toil and anxiety the 
work was recommenced and kept alive till the prospect of success 
brought all the wealth to its aid which had hitherto been held Lack. 
Ten years more, and the President of the United States and his Cabi- 
net, with the highest dignitaries of the City and State, were whirled 
from station to station, from the Ocean to the Lakes, amid the thunder 
of cannon, the peal of bells, and the shouts of an inauguration grander 
even in its outward aspects than tin' triumphal processions of old 
Rome. The cost of this stupendous work was more than twenty 
millions of dollar.-. 

What distinguishes the Erie Road above all other railroads is its 
apparent disregai'd of natural difficulties. It disdains to borrow an 

I'.i 



146 THE ERIE RAILROAD. 

underground passage through the heart of an opposing mountain, but 
climbs the steeps, looks over the tops of the pines, and occasionally 
touches the skirt of a stray cloud. It descends with equal facility, 
with a slope in some places startlingly perceptible, throws its bridges 
across rivers, its viaducts over valleys, and sometimes runs along the 
brink of a giddy precipice, with a fearless security which very much 
heightens the satisfaction of the traveller. Let us put the airy car of 
our memory on its track, and we shall run over the whole line before 
one of its locomotives could pant out fifty of its asthmatic breathings. 
From Piermont, on the Hudson, the road stretches out an arm, a 
mile in length, into the Tappan Bay, and receives us from the boat. 
Behind the village there is a notch in the arc of hills embracing the 
bay, and through it we pass into the old fields of Rockland, with their 
old walls and old, red, Dutch farmhouses. A few miles — and the 
Ion"-, sweeping outline of Ramapo Mountain rises before us; the beau- 
tiful Ramapo Valley lies below, and the little village, with its foun- 
dries and forges, nearly two centuries old, stands in the mouth of the 
only pass whereby the mountain is pierced in all its extent — the 
Clove of Ramapo. Through this pass, of eight miles in length, winds 
a rivulet, now spreading into a tiny mountain lake, now fretting over 
the rocks, and leaping hither and thither in a chain of linked cascades. 
The road follows the rivulet into the grazing farms of Goshen — rich, 
upland meadows, dotted with trees and breathing of the cream and 
milk and butter that load a daily train to the metropolis. This region 
is passed and again the mountains appear, the Catskills blue in the 
north, but the rugged Shawangunk lying across our path. Up, up we 
go, fifty feet to the mile, and are soon high on the side, looking over 
its forests into the deep basin of the Nevising, which pours its watery 
into the Delaware. Port Jervis, a station on the line, seems at our 
feet; it is five hundred feet below us, but sliding down ten miles in 
almost so many minutes, we are there. 



T II E K K 1 I i: ilLKOAD, 117 

The road n<>\\ crosses the Delaware into Pennsylvania, and for a 
distance of seventy or eighty mile- follows the hank of the river 
through wild and rugged scenery. For several miles the track lias 
been laid, with immense Labor and cost, on the top of a precipice 
nearh one hundred feel in height and falling sheer to the river. Much 
of the country i- the primitive wilderness, which has never yet been 
reclaimed. Finally, at Deposit, not far from the source of the Dela- 
ware, the road turns westward and crosses the Alleghanies to the val- 
ley of the Susquehanna. Between the two rivers there is also a com- 
plete wilderness, uninhabited except by the workmen belonging to the 
l'oad. Notwithstanding a summit cut of 200 feet deep, which cosl 
$200,000, the ascending and descending grades are very heavy, and 
some of the mosl remarkable portions of the work are to he found at 
this point. After striking the Susquehanna, our journey lies tor nearl) 
one hundred and fifty miles in the rich and picturesque valleys of that 
river and it- tributaries, the Tioga and the Canisteo, passing through 
the flourishing towns of Binghamton, Owego, Elinira, and Corning. 
( >verlooking the superb meadows and rolling grain-fields, the AHegha- 
aies or spurs of them are always in sight, and on either side we have 
a rapidlj unrolling panorama of such rural beauty as would have be- 
wildered old Cuyp and Rysdael. Another dividing ridge, less steep 
and rugged than the previous, and we descend through virgin forests, 
some of which are -wept away li\ tire to make room for the settler, to 
the Alleghanj River. Hence, to Lake Erie, our course is mainrj 
through a wild and uncultivated region, or seeming so, after the boun- 
tiful valleys we have Left. We cross the Indian Reservation; catch a 
glimpse of some aboriginal idlers in wampum and tnoccason ; again 
climb a range of hills, several hundred feet in height, from whose sides 

we overlook valleys and Levels of wild w Hand, and at Las1 reach a 

curve, where, beyond the far -weep of the dark forest, we see the 



1 18 TH E ERIE ISA II. i: (i A D. 

edge of the sky crossed by a line of deeper blue and know that we 
behold Lake Erie. Is not" all tins enough for a summer's day? 

The bold design of this road involved the necessity of a number 
of grand and costly works. The track itself, in the Pass of Ramapo, 
and along the Upper Delaware, frequently cost upwards of $100,000 
per mile. The Starucca Viaduct, an immense structure of hewn stone, 
crossing the valley at Lansingburg, is the finest work of "the kind in 
this country. It is 1,200 feet long, consisting of 18 arches 114 feet in 
height, and was erected at a cost of $300,000. Next to this, in point 
of importance, and more remarkable in its character, is the bridge 
over Cascade Ravine, which is crossed in the descent from the summit 
ridge of the Alleghanies to the Susquehanna. The mountain is here 
interrupted by a deep gorge or chasm, through the bottom of which 
a small stream tumbles in its foamy course. Across this gulf, 184 feet 
in depth, a single arch of 280 feet span has been thrown, its abut- 
ments resting on the solid crags. This daring arch, which, to the 
spectator below, seems hung in mid-air, was eighteen months in build- 
ing, and cost $70,000. A little to the north the gorge opens into the 
Valley of the Susquehanna, disclosing through its rugged jaws the 
most beautiful landscape seen on the road. 

It was the good fortune of the writer to he one of the guests in 
the first train which passed over the Cascade Ravine Bridge. At the 
close of December, 184s, the line was opened from Port Jervis to 
Binghamton, a distance of one hundred and twenty-five miles. The 
incidents of that first journey by steam through the wilderness, in the 
depth of winter, will not soon be forgotten by those who took part in 
it. The Shawangunk Mountains were topped with snow as we passed 
them, and on taking the new track, beyond Port Jervis, the flakes 
began to fall thick and fast. The Delaware ran at the foot of the 
wild bluffs choked with masses of ice, and each of its many windings 



r ii e k i: i E i: ailboad. I 19 

disclosed a more drear and wintry prospect. The hemlocks benl 
under their white load; the river ran cold and dark; the frozen cas- 
cades hung from the rocks, like masses of transparenl spar. For manj 
m mile there was no sign of human habitation— nothing bu1 the 
grand ami desolate solitude of the mountains. Ami yet— wonder 
beyond the tales of Scheherazade! — our superb train carried a bearl 
of luxury into thai savage realm. We sped along, swiftlj as the bird 
flies, in a warm and richbj furnished chamber, lounging on sofl seats, 

half arm-chair ami half couch, apparently as disconnected IV tlm 

landscape as a loose leal' blown over it bj the winds. l u that plea- 
sant climate of our own we heard the keen air whistle without, and 
the lighl patter of the snow againsl the windows, with a sense of com- 
forl rendered doubly palpable by the contrast. 

At the little villages on the route, triumphal arches of fir and 
hemlock boughs were built lor us, upon which antlered buck-, brought 
in by the hunters, stood straight and still'. Every town which could 
boast a cannon, gave a hearty salute, and as the early nightfall came 
on, bonfires were lighted on the hills, it was after dark when we left 
Deposit, and the -now was a loot deep on tic track, but with two 
locomotives plowing through the drifts, we toiled slowly to the sum- 
mit. After we had passed the deep cut and had entered on the de- 
scending grade, it was found that in consequence of the -now having 
melted around the rails and afterwards frozen again, the breaks at- 
tached to the cars would not act. The wheels slipped over the icy 
surface, and in spite of the amount of snow that had fallen, we -hot 
down the mountain at the rate of forty miles an hour. The lighl of 
our lamps showed as the white banks on either hand; the ghostlj 
3 above and the storm that drove over all: beyond this, all was 
darkness. Some anxietj was felt a- we approached the Bridge over 
Cascade Ravine; the time was not auspicious for this lir-t ie-1 of it- 



150 THE Ell IE KAILKOAD. 

solidity. Every eye peered into the gloom, watching for the critical 
spot, as we dashed onwards. At last, in the twinkling of an eye, the 
mountain-sides above and below us dropped out of sight, and left us 
looking out on the void air. The lamps enabled us to see for an in- 
stant, through the falling snow-flakes, the sharp tops of pines far 
below. For a second or two we hung above them, suspended over 
the terrible gulf, and then every one drew a deep breath as we touched 
the solid rock which forms the abutment of the arch. But our course 
was not checked till we reached the Susquehanna Valley, where we 
sped on past bonfires blazing redly over the snow, till the boom of 
minute-guns and the screams of our strong-lunged locomotives startled 
the inhabitants of Binghamton at midnight. 

On our return, the following day, we reached the Cascade Ravine 
in the afternoon, and a halt was made to enable us to view the bridge 
from below. Scrambling through the snow, down the slippery de- 
clivities, we at last reached the bottom of the gorge and looked up at 
the wonderful arch, which spanned it as lightly as a rainbow. Firm- 
set on its base of eternal granite, it gave not the slightest quiver when 
«>ur train passed over. Although made of perishable materials, it will 
last as long as they hold together, for its mountain abutments cannot 
be shaken. Seen from below, the impression it makes upon the eye 
is most complete and satisfactory, combining the extreme of lightness 
and grace with strength and inflexible solidity. A few yards further 
up the mountain, the cloven chasm, over which the gnarled pines hang 
their sombre boughs, widens to a rocky basin, into which falls a cas- 
cade seventy feet in height, whence the ravine takes its name. The 
accompanying engraving, from the view taken by Mr. Talbot, though 
it may appear exaggerated to one wdio has never beheld the reality, 
conveys no more than a just idea of the bold and striking character 
of this work. 



THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS, 

WEST POINT. 

The Church of the Holy Innocents is situated on the wesl bant of 
the Hudson, in the very heart of the Highlands, and about a mile 
south of the Military Academy at "West Point. 

It was built in the years '46 and '47, and consecrated in July of 
the latter year by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Delancey. 

Rumor lias so highly colored the history of its origin, as to enlist 
in its behalf a degree of interest which may not be materially lessened 
by a simple statement of the truth. 

While two or three persons at West Point were contemplating a 
place for the erection of a Church, somewhere near the spot on which 
the one in question now stands, lor the benefit of the neighboring 
population, and as a centre of missionary operations in the surround- 
ing country, embracing a, large section of the Highlands, one of their 
number — Prof. I!. W. Weir moved l>\ an afflictive dispensation of 
God's providence, in the death of <i child, made an offering, of that 
child'- portion, to God, as the beginning of a fund for the building of 
a Church to be called "The Church of the Hohj Innocents." IP sub- 
sequently added to this sum Other offerings of his own, and of a few 



152 CHURCH OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS. 

other persons at West Point and elsewhere, who felt an interest in the 
undertaking. The simple, but chaste and beautiful sanctuary, erected 
to " the honor and glory of God," is the fruit of these offerings. 

The plan of the Church, both in its outline and details, was fur- 
nished by Mr. Weir, who also superintended its erection. The stone 
of which it is built was taken from the land on which the Church 
stands, and which was the gift of Mr. W. B. Cozzens. 

The Church is somewhat in the early English style of architec- 
ture ; cruciform in plan, the nave being about GO feet by 28 (on the 
outside), and each of the transepts 10i feet by 10. There is an admi- 
rably well proportioned Tower at the north-east corner, 48 feet in 
height, and 14i feet square at the base. One of the most beautiful 
external features of the sacred edifice, is the low south porcli, which is 
its principal entrance. Over the door of this porch there is a tablet 
with the simple inscription, " To the honor and glory of God." Sur- 
mounting the east end of the nave, and also the porch, are two flori- 
ated crosses. 

In the position of the Church the rule of orientation has been 
observed, the chancel pointing towards the east, and the altar being 
in the eastern end. 

On entering the porch the eye is at once arrested by a text of 
Holy Scripture written over the inner door : " O ! come let us wor- 
ship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker." On enter- 
ing the Church itself, the eye is again met every where with texts of 
Holy Scripture. Over every door, on every window, over the altar, 
over the font, on the walls, and in each of the windows, texts chosen 
with peculiar aptness convey their sacred teachings to the devout wor- 
shipper: — e. ;/., over the altar are the words, "As often as ye eat this 
bread and drink this cup, ye show the Lord's death until lie come ;" 
over the font, "Except a man be horn of water and the Spirit, he 



1 111 Kill OF THE llol.Y INNOCENTS. 1 53 

cannol enter the kingdom of God ;" over the door by which the Priesl 
inter- thr Church to engage in bia holy functions, "As tin Father 
hath senl me, even so send I you;" over the windows the texts are all 
words of Thaise. 

In tin' south transept, at tin' entrance of the Church, stands the 
Baptismal Font, one of the mosl beautiful in this country, octagon 
shaped, with sacred symbols carved mi the sides, [t is of the granite 
of tin- Highlands, :s' feet in height, ami the bowl 7\ feet in circumfer- 
ence. The windows, deeply splayed on the inside, are of stained 
glass; in the centre of each is a plain white cross, on the tranverse 
beam of which is a passage of Holy Scripture chosen from the divine 
sayings of our Lord. 

Tlie seats are plain, open benches, and free to all worshippers. The 
wainscoting and walls are of a -rave and sober color. The chancel 
occupies at ]. resent the head of the cross, but this, it is hoped, will lie 
"iily a temporary arrangement. 

The whole interior, marked by unity of design, by perfed sim- 
plicity, and by a quiet solemnity, cannot fail to shed its hallowing 
subduing influence over the soul of every worshipper who enters there, 
in sincerity and truth, to worship Almighty God ; while, the exterior of 
the sacred temple, with its gray, unhewn walls, its very irregular out- 
line, its simple rural aspect, harmonizes most strikingly with the romdi 
wild mountain scenery in the midst of which it seems to have sprung 
up, itself a work of nature. And its tower, pointing heavenward, its 
cruciform outline, its cross-crowned peak, tell unmistakably its holy cha- 
racter, and serve to remind all who enter or behold it, both of the 
end and of the faith to which God is calling them* 

For the preceding notice we are indebted to the Rev. W. B. Gibson, the Rector of 

the ' 'lniivli. 



20 



THE VALLEY OK THE HOUS ATONIC 



IS V \V 1 LLI A M CUL LE N li K V AN T. 



The landscape of Gignoux, engraved for this volume, representing a 
winter scene, belongs to a class of subjects which lie always treats 
well. With him winter is always a season of splendor. The crisp 
snow lies glittering where it was dropped from the clouds or cast ly 
the wind, an intense sunshine tills the transparent sky, and is reflected 
from the white clouds, and penetrates the pellucid ice. The figures he 
introduces are shown in movements which have all the vivacity be- 
[i mging to the season. 

Gignoux is a native of France, who for many years has made this 
country his home, and learned to love its scenerj with all the affection 
of one who passed his childhood here, lie is never tired of wander- 
ing by our wild streams, of studying our boundless woods, with their 
vast variety of foliage, of climbing our rocky mountains and looking 
down into the pleasanl valleys that stretch away in our clear and 
glowing atmosphere. To him Nature makes qo reserve of her hidden 
beauties, and his portfolio, filled with studies of places the image ol 



1 56 TIIK VALLEY Oh' THE HOUSATONIC. 

which was never before thrown upon canvas, is one of the richest ever 
possessed by landscape painter. 

In this view he shows us the Valley of the Ilousatonic at New 
Milford, where the river, in its passage to the sea, takes its leave of 
the more "beautiful parts of the country through which its flows. The 
time is early winter, as is shown by the tufts of sere foliage yet cling- 
ing to the trees and shrubs. Skaters are pursuing their sport in the 
foreground, a sleigh is passing swiftly over a rude wooden bridge 
which crosses one of the tributaries of the Housatonic, and beyond, in 
the distance, rises the line of cold blue hdls which bound the valley. 
The snow has fallen through the naked trees to the earth, leaving the 
sides and sunmiits of the hdls dark with their branches. 

Below New Milford, the valley of the Ilousatonic, if it may still 
lie called a valley, wears a tamer aspect. Let me, in a few words, 
trace the river in its progress to the ocean. The Ilousatonic has its 
birth among the highlands of Berkshire in the State of Massachusetts. 
Here it sports and sings away its infancy in the woods, leaping in its 
frolics from one rock to another. Of the brooks that form its current 
some linger in the rich meadows of Lanesborough, where the lime- 
stone soil nourishes a thick growth of grass and gives a peculiar dense- 
ness to the foliage of the trees. If I may trust to my recollection I 
have never observed the same freshness and brightness of verdure in 
the fields of any part of our country as in that neighborhood. As 
the stream increases in volume and strength, its season of play is over, 
and entering the 1 uoad and beautiful vale of Pittsfield, in what I may 
call the period of its youth, it is set to toil for man, and drives the 
machinery of cotton and woollen mills. Escaped from this servitude 
it murmurs awhile in the narrow and woody valleys of Lenox, where 
it is only of late that the kingfisher has been startled by the shrill 
whistle of the railway engine, but it is soon employed in other tasks — 



T II E V .V I, I. i: V o I'' THE HO US ATONIC. L51 

to lit'i and Let tall the ponderous hammers of forges and make acres 
of paper for the daily press. In Stockbridge it begins to put on the 
majesty of manhood and winds backwards and forwards among the 
grassy aatural terraces and maple woods, as if unwilling to leave so 
fair a region. In Great Barrington it Hows slowly through meadows 
hemmed in by the picturesque summits of craggy mountain ridges. In 
Sheffield it has formed, by mining the ground for centuries, a vast plain 
of six miles in width, reaching to the base of the Taconic, the highesl 
mountain along its course, dark, grand, and sending scores of clear 
rivulets down his steep sides to swell the current of his own fair river. 
In Canaan the Housatonic casts its entire volume of amber-colored 
waters down a precipice of sixty feet in height, an overhanging shelf, 
as is the case with most of the waterfalls in this country, the layers of 
rock below having crumbled away, while the uppermost remains firm. 
It then pursues its way through a sort of glen, bounded east and wesl 
li\ ridges rich with massive woods, and fields running up their sides 
into the forest, till it reaches New Milford, the scene of Gignoux's 
picture. In all the places I have enumerated if turns huge wheels and 
labors in the mills, hut a \\:w miles below New Milford it lays itself 
sluggishly down between level hanks and creeps to its final resting 
place in the ocean. From Derby downward to the Sound it i- navi- 
gable, passively bearing out and bringing in a vessel now and then — 
like an aged man, retired lV.nu the active employments of life, and 
good-naturedly carrying his grandchildren in his arms. 

'Idie tributaries of the Housatonic are no less beautiful than the 
riser itself. The lake in Stockbridge, a wonder of beauty, which the 
birth and residence of Mis- Sedgwick in its neighborhood have made 
classical — I mention the nana' of the lady without reserve as I would 
thai of any other person held in universal honor, — gives the tribute 
of its waters to the Housatonic. In Greal Barrington, Green River 



l.VS THE VALLEY OF THE HOUSATONIC. 

(■(Hues in from the west through charming pastoral solitudes, with ;i 
current almost of a grass-green tint. The sister lakes in Salisbury, 
issue iii a brook which falls into this river. I am not certain whether 
the stream of Bashpish, so much visited of late, which throws itself 
down the steep sides of Tacoiiic in a series of tails, ilows into the 
Housatonic or not, but the cascade by universal consent is reckoned 
among the beautiful and picturesque tilings of the valley. 

Some of the most remarkable atmospheric appearances observed 
in this valley do not present themselves to the casual visitor, though 
he be an artist. 1 remember one of these altogether too glorious to 
be copied by the pencil. A thunder-shower had arisen after a hot 
summer day. As the thunderbolts were dropping into the tops of the 
hills around, and the rain falling in torrents, the sun, then about to 
set, illuminated the whole mass of clouds and rain, with an orange- 
colored light, which gradually passed into a deep crimson. The inner 
rooms of the houses were filled with the same ruddy lustre, which glit- 
tered reflected from the pools and streams in the road, and from the 
wet roots of the houses, the grass, and the leaves of the trees. Above, 
the spectacle was still more extraordinary. The lightnings were run- 
ning to and fro, appearing like rivulets of molten gold, suddenly 
poured through the crimson clouds and as suddenly absorbed into 
them. The crimson glow slowly changed into a purple as the clouds 
were retiring, and the last Hashes of the lightning and the last tinges 
of the clouds were Mended with the cool blue light of the full moon 
shining from a sky of perfect transparency. 

At another time when at Sheffield, 1 was a spectator of a thunder- 
shower no less remarkable. After a day of extreme sultriness, the 
clouds began to rise behind Taconic and over its summit, with the 
mutterings of distant thunder. Up they were heaved, higher and 
higher, darker and darker, heavier and heavier, till they became o( a 



I hi: V A I. I. E V l' I 11 i: II (i i S ATONIC. 159 

deep indigo tint, and seemed a- if the steeps of a far loftier mountain, 
one of tin' A.lps or the A.ndes, had been heaped upon Taconic. Sud- 
denly the liuge mass began t<> roll downwards with Louder crashes of 
thunder, towards the side- of the mountain, as if it had broken over 
a barrier, carrying with it the strange indigo hue and an intense dark- 
no-, and sending before it winds which scoured the plain and raised 
clouds of dust, and tilled the sky with Leaves rent from the trees. I 
have never seen any aspecl of the clouds so grand and awful a- the 
approaches of that thunder-shower. 

It was some time aboul the beginning of (he Last century thai the 
Dutch emigrants from the State of New-York, and the settlers from 
Connecticut and the eastern part of Massachusetts came at the same 
time into the \alle\ of the Housatonic. The descendants of the 
Hollanders chose Greal Barrington ami its neighborhood for their 
abode, where they had Large farms on the rich lands bordering this 
river, and kept Large herds of cattle and horses. Their posterity, some- 
what intermingled with the English race, remain there yet, and 1 
recollect that twenty-five years since they gave evidence in their per- 
son — for tin} were Large-limbed men, almost colossal in size of the 
etl'.ct of a mixture of nation- upon the human stature. In some ot 
the households Dutch was -.till the language of the fireside, and those 
who were adopted into them, learned it as a matter of course, 

though the\ were often Laughed at for the imperfect manner in which 

they -poke it. I recollect o| ic , if t hese t all Dutchmen 1 ioa-t ill-' of the 

progress made in the tongue by a little, boy who had come to live 
in hi- family. I met the same man a few years since, and was inform- 
ed by him that he had lost hi- wife Long ago and had nearly forgotten 
his Dutch. I infer that it i> no longer a living Language in Berkshire. 

Bui I have often reflected upon what would have 1 n the conse 

quence if the power of England had met the fate which befell tin- 



160 THE VALLEY OF THE II d US A TONIC. 

power of Holland, and if that republic had flourished, while England 
fell into decay. The Dutch emigration would, of course, have filled 
the valley of the. Housatonic Bilderdijk would have been at this 
moment the favorite poet of the people on that river ; the romances 
of Loosjes would have taken the place of those of Walter Scott ; the 
more devout would have read the sermons of Van der Palm, and the 
lovers of mirth would have laughed at the jokes of Weiland. So far 
as concerns the fine arts, the dwellings would have been more pic- 
turesque, comfortable Dutch houses with low roofs and spacious stoops, 
embowered in trees, instead of the grim, naked, and tasteless habitations 
of the Yankees. The painters who sought their subjects among the 
inhabitants of the valley would have painted interiors after the man- 
ner of Teniers, or elaborate and highly finished landscapes, in which 
fidelity to nature was more regarded than the selection of objects, after 
the. manner of Cuy] >. 



THE A 1)1 U()i\ I) AC K MO I ATA INS 



BY ALFRED II. STREET. 



Upon a beautiful July evening, the writer was passing up Lake 
Chanaplain in one of the fine steamboats that ply upon it> Lovely 
waters. Bappening to raise his eyes from the plain of glass which 
stretched before him, his attention was arrested by a mountain ma" 
tracing: an irregular line against tin* golden background of the West. 
Just over the highest peak was the descending sun, and the whole 
mass was invested with an azure hue soft as a remembered sorrow, 
and sweet as a hope of flic future. It seemed a- if seraphic music 
mighl breathe from that dreamy mist, as if on those summits rested 
the quietude of Leaven. It was the mass of the Ai>ironi>acks. 

These splendid mountains form a group, the loftiest of a range 

which extends, in the Northern section of New-York, fr Little 

Falls on the Mohawk to Trembleau Point on Lake Champlain. The 
group heaves up into and above the clouds its cone-like peaks ami 
jagged ridges, which seem, from some commanding view, as it' a stormj 
ocean had become suddenly fixed in its wildest tossings. The range 
in which occurs this group runs in a northeasterlj direction, forming 

•_'l 



L62 THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS. 

the easterly and most elevated portion of what is denominated the 
Plateau of Northern New-York — which Plateau is bounded by the 
waters of the St. Lawrence and Ontario, the Black and Mohawk 
rivers and Lake Champlain. The group is composed of several 
summits, the loftiest of which are Mounts Marcy, Mclntyre, McMar- 
tin and Santanoni, the two latter rising 5000 feet above the tide, and 
the two former over that elevation. The highest is Mount Marcy 
(the Indian name being Ta-ha-wus — "He splits the Sky"), the 
loftiest eminence in our State, raising itself to a mile in height. 
From its summit of gray rock is a forest prospect, three hundred 
miles in circumference. The forked lightning darts from clouds far, 
far below this peak, and the fir which on the sides of the mountain 
rises to a stately shape, diminishes to a creeping shrub, and at last 
vanishes from the face of the stern cold summit. Near it springs 
the most northern source of the Hudson, whilst the whole group, 
forming the highest portion of the northern watershed, pours its 
streams, which become majestic rivers, in all directions. 

Manifold lakes lie along the bases of these wild mountains, whose 
crystal bosoms are only disturbed by the canoe of the Indian hunter, 
or casual sportsman, the leap of the monster trout, the clip of the 
screaming diver, or the motions of the swimming deer. Such are 
lakes Colden, Avalanche, Sanford, and Henderson. 

A dense forest mantles the slopes and valleys of the region, within 
which live the splendid moose, the lurking panther, the dark heavy 
bear, and quick timid deer. In a few shaded streams still linger the 
beaver, the loneliest of the forest habitants, known only to the most 
indefatigal >le trapper. 

The Adirondack Pass in this group is wild and savage as the 
imagination can conceive. Situated between Mount Mclntyre and 
Wallfaee, a perpendicular precipice of a thousand feet reals itself on 



THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS. I 63 

one side, upon the summit of which lofty firs appear, like a fringe, 
a t'rw inches in height, \\ liiUt the gorge itself is piled with rocks upon 
which grow trees of fifty feet. 

[t is a sublime cathedral of nature, whose stillness awes the soul, 
and whose voice, supplied by the storm, lift a tremendous anthem to 
the God whose \\ lerful power was employed in its creation. 

Such is the Adirondack region, surrounded by the smiling civiliza- 
tion of our Empire Stat.', bu1 remaining still as countless centuries 
have seen it, probably since the waters of the Deluge. 



SCAKOOX 01! SCHROON LAKE. 

(cole.) 

The engraving represents one of the wildest and mosl beautiful 
Lake iii the State of ISTew York, and probably in tne United States. 
It i> situated partly in the counties of Warren and Essex, is nine miles 
long and aboul one mile wide The view is taken from an islam 
the north end of the Lake, .-it the time wh< 



in 



"Twilight's shad tea stealing on, 

i >'er mountain, wood, and stream, 
Wrapping the dim, far-stretching Lake 
in :i lmsli'.l and holy dream." 

Il is peculiarly Aonerican in its character, being both wild and 
picturesque, and one which the artist delighted to portray. 

Schr , Phwi-aos or Bluebeard Mountain, which is the most pro- 

minenl peak in the picture, is about lour miles from the Lake, and 
attain- an altitude of 3,200 feet. The more distant are the peaks of 
the Eastern range of the Mirondacks. Thai at the right of the en 
o-ravine is the Saddlebach Mountain. The shores of the Lake are 
covered with the dense foliage as -ecu in the engraving. 



166 SCAEOOH OE SCHEOOH LAKE. 

The red cedar in the foreground is one of the noble trees which 
abound on the borders of the Mountain Lakes in this section of our 
country, interspersed with the maple, hemlock, and pine. Around the 
extreme point, jutting into the Lake and seen through the trees, flows 
the noble Hudson, which at this point is but a very small stream, and 
which connects Schroon with Paradox Lake. 

The island from which the scene was taken, is owned and is now 
the residence of Andrew [reland, Esq., formerly of this city, from the 
north end of which a magnificent view of the whole eastern range of 
the Adirondack- ma\ lie had. The name of the lamented Cole is 
identified with American Scenery, and while he continued to paint the 
scenerj of America, In' was unapproached. lie it was that first gave 
the American landscape character, and whose genius delighted in por- 
traying the wild and romantic beauty of her forests, lakes, and water- 
falls, and who so truthfully presented to the admiring eye the gran- 
deur of her sunsets, tornadoes, and autumn's gorgeous livery. He it 
was who first taught us that we need not leave our own wild and 
beautiful scenery for subjects suitable for pictorial embellishment. 
The scene here given is but one of America's magnificent Lakes, and 
it is to be regretted that we have not more views of the Lakes of 
Essex from the pencil of this favorite artist, The accompanying en- 
graving is made from the original in the possession of Mrs. Cole, who 
has many of the remaining productions of this distinguished painter. 



\KT IN TIIK UNITED STATES, 



B 5 G E ii. V\ - i: it II ink, D. D. 

The comprehensive title al the head of this page is imt a promise of 
a formal essay, but has been taken as a convenienl because sufficiently 
expansible heading, to cover some desultory remarks suggested by the 
rapid growth among us, during the last few years, of talenl and taste 
for An. 

The American has frequent occasion to say, in answer to hasty 
strictures of foreigners, particularly those from Greal Britain, thai 
thej "do not understand us;" and the reply, irrepressible from its 
truth, has been much ridiculed by our transatlantic cousins, as if i1 
were easj to < I i;i \\ conclusions from superficial facts. The reverse is, 
however, the case, both from the difficulty of knowing all the facts, 
and the uecessity of having a righl poinl of view. As, because of 

the variety, which gives individuality of character, i ue man can 

thoroughly understand another, bul each has received a distinctness 
from his peculiar temperament, mental structure, early circumstances, 
and all those influences which make up his education, so we may well 
doubl the abilitj of an observer, however candid and intelligent, to 



L68 A.RT IN THE UNITED STATES. 

understand the people of another nation. Forms of government, 
climate, pursuits of life as affected by soil or position, descent whether 
pure or mixed, seclusion from other portions of mankind or inter- 
course with them, historical associations, hereditary habits and preju- 
dices, language, literature, religion, with many other less scrutable but 
important coalescing causes, render each nation an enigma to all 
others. Civilization is a mystery to the savage, and the savage no less 
a mystery to his civilized brother. A Laplander and an Arab, if 
thrown together, would scarcely agree in aught but the appetites, pas- 
sions, and faculties common to man. An adult Turk could never be 
turned into an Anglo-Saxon, nor an Anglo-Saxon into a Turk; they 
might exchange countries and garments, but, while life lasted, the one 
would delight to steal away from the bustle around him that he might 
enjoy in cross-legged repose his revery of trustful fatalism, and the 
other would shuffle forth in his slippers eager after the latest news. 
It is hardly more possible for an Englishman to comprehend a 
Frenchman, or a Frenchman an Englishman, though they have been 
within a few hours of each other since time immemorial. Solid John 
Bull looks upon the grimaces of his mercurial neighbor, as upon the 
tricks of a mountebank's monkey, while he of the Grande Nation, 
shrugging his elastic shoulders, returns the contempt by muttering, 
" />'(/< /" How utterly strange to us in this country is the readiness 
with which the revolutionary masses of the old world, after months of 
fire and carnage and bluster, subside before the bayonets of an auto- 
crat! And how far beyond the conception of European statesman- 
ship is the simple Law by which the very multiplicity of our well- 
guarded state sovereignties best secures our national union ! 

There are strong reasons why our American characteristics are 
slowly understood by others; Massed through our reading of histori- 
cal precedents, we are apt to judge incorrectly of ourselves; nor can 



A KT IN Til E D N IT ED ST A T ES. I l>9 

;iu_\ question touching our manners or tendencies, be properly dis- 
cussed without going over and carefullj considering the circumstances 
in which they have been developed. Our origin, situation, constitu- 
ents, and manner of growth, are so unexampled as almost to exclude 
analogy. Compared with all others, ancient or modern, our nation is 
an anomaly. Coming into being when the mind of Europe, especially 
of Great Britain, had reached a high degree of cultivated strength, 
the American people sprung Less from the loins than from the brain of 
her great parent, not, indeed, full-grown, but with a precocious vigor 

far beyond child! d. The early colonists of British race were, for 

the most part, of that stern, indomitable faith, which, loyal to a divine 
sovereign, unhesitatingly challenged human usurpations. Those from 
Holland, then just emancipated, after a long struggle with bigol 
Spain, and the Buguenot exiles, preferring expatriation to apostacy, 
were of the same liberty-loving, yet severe creed. Religious sympa- 
thy prepared them for political co-operation; and they, acting really 
long before they acted formally together, gave, as the predominating 
element, a unity of purpose to the scattered settlements, which could 
not otherwise have been expected from their heterogeneous origin. 
Educated by difficulties in the old world, they were ready to meet, 
with intelligent, hopeful courage, the difficulties of the new. They 
were also of equal rank, and, for the most part, equal fortunes. 
Hereditary nobility and privileged classes were not recognized among 
them. Such pretensions, where personal labor was required of all, 
would have been ridiculous. Oppressed, a1 times, ly the imperial ex- 
actions of the mother country, and the insolence of it- proconsular 
representatives, they ye1 could not be debarred the filial prerogative 
of using the English tongue and the unequalled store- of wisdom, po- 
litical, literary, and religious, already provided by English pens. 

The land in which they sought a new home, seemed to have been 



170 ART IN THE UNITED STATES. 

reserved by a predetermining Providence for them. Other great 
states, established by conquest or colonization, have been founded 
among pre-resident tribes, who, mingling with the new-comers, have 
exerted an influence, sometimes not small, upon the character of the 
future nation. Unless we utterly discredit their traditionary annals, 
we find Pelasgic names interspersed among the Cecropidse of Athens; 
and trace the growth of Rome in her successive engorgements of 
neighboring people. The excellence of the present British character 
is fairly attributable to the fusion of several bloods in oue. But the 
aborigines of this country, too few and too savage to cultivate the 
wilderness, resisted feebly the disciplined invaders, while their color, 
but still more their singular spirit, forbade amalgamation. < )ur fathers 
had the whole country to themselves, and found here neither arts, nor 
customs, nor alliances. Separated by a wide ocean from the inveterate 
prejudices and hereditary proscriptions which retard older nations, 
they had opportunity for experiment ; while, at the same time, their 
commercial enterprise, the main secret of Anglo-Saxon superiority, 
brought them the stimulants of example and emulation. Their insti- 
tutions were not indigenous, but having been first selected from what 
they considered the best stocks of Europe, then modified and adapted 
to their exigencies and views by various intergraftings, they grew 
rapidly and fruitfully in the virgin soil. Thus the principles of our 
government were educed, not from the hypotheses of Utopian philoso- 
phers, or slavish imitations, or a fortuitous concourse of elements, or 
even from the mere pressure of circumstances, but from a sturdy com- 
mon sense, regulated by scriptural faith, improved by study, w r arned 
by the failures and encouraged by the successes of all antecedent 
lime, animated by an insatiable thirst for liberty, compelled by the 
vital necessity of union, and supported by physical strength earned in 
felling forests and subduing wild farms. In a happy hour the govern- 



\ i: I I \ T II K INI I ED - I A T BS. 171 

ment was independently established. Since then, on that broad, and, 

as everj true heart hopes, indestructible liasis, ■ nation has beer 

I »ni 1 1 up from prolific natural increase and emigration to us out of op- 
pressed and over-peopled countries. Our territories have been wide- 
ly, \ et safely enlarged, until now a broad region between the sea. on 

whose shores the early settlers landed, and the Pacific, over which the 
eager eye of our enterprise looks out tor fresh aggrandizements, is 
inhabited by a brotherhood governed by the one law of their own 
consent. 

Under the pressure of such cares, and struggles, and urgent anxie- 
ties, there could lie neither time nor desire for the cultivation of those 
elegant pursuits which are the luxury of leisure, the decoration of 
wealth, and the charm of refinement. The Puritans and the Presby- 
terians, together the most influential, were not favorable to the Fine 
Arts; and the Quakers abjured them. Men living in log cabins and 
busied all the day in held, workshop, or warehouse, and liable to 
attack bj savage enemies at any moment, were indisposed to seek 
after or encourage what was not immediately useful. Their hard- 
earned ami precarious gains would not justify the indulgence. There 
were i\'\v, or rather no specimens of artistic skill among them to 
awaken taste or imitation. It is, therefore, little to he wondered at, if 
they did not show an appreciation of Art proportionate to their ad- 
vance in other moral respects; or that they waited until they had 
secured a substantial prosperity, before they ventured to gratify 
themselves with the beautiful. The brilliant examples of West and 
Copley, with some others of inferior note, showed the presence of 
genius, but those artists found abroad the encouragemenl and instruc- 
tion not attainable a1 home, thus depriving their country of all share 
in their fame except the credit of having given them birth. 

A- a sense of security and increasing riches began to be felt, aboul 



17*2 ART IN THE UNITED STATES. 

the beginning of the century, we discover tokens of a more generous 
spirit. Distinguished men returned from honorable missions with an 
appetite for Art, excited by what they had seen in the capitals of 
Europe. The enthusiasm and example of Peale, Stuart, Trumbull, 
and others native-born and foreigners, could not be without effect. 
Aspirants to the honors of the pencil and burin became numerous 
enough to form associations for their mutual benefit; and, at least 
among the better few, a disposition to encourage their efforts was ap- 
parent. Two valuable collections of casts from the antique were ob- 
tained ; one for the New-York Academy of Fine Arts, through Chan- 
cellor Livingston ; the other for the Pennsylvania Academy at Phi- 
ladelphia, through the zeal of Judge Hopkjnson; some good pictures 
were imported, and some good, with many inferior, produced at home ; 
the Academies and Artists' Associations attempted exhibitions, private 
enterprise opened others, and, doubtless, though not eminently suc- 
cessful, they all contributed to improve the taste of the public. In- 
creasing wealth, means of communication with the old world, and the 
travel of many Americans abroad, rapidly extended a spirit favorable 
to Art in every form, which was yet more stimulated by the rise 
among us, almost simultaneously, of men whose genius in several de- 
partments of painting and of sculpture, startled and delighted us with 
a galaxy of talent deserving eminence among cotemporaneous com- 
petitors in any part of the world. Some of them are still living, 
others have died too soon ; but their brilliant names need not be writ- 
ten here, for they are inscribed high in the records of their country's 
fame and on the hearts of us all. Since then, especially since the 
establishment of the National Academy of Design, (of which our most 
honorably distinguished but ill-requited fellow-citizen, S. F. B. Morse, 
was the first President,) in 1826, and more especially within the last 



A i; l I \ T II E I N I T E D ST A 1 E8. I 7:'' 

ten years, large advances have been made, and Art has fairly begun 
to flourish among us, giving rich earnest of yet higher attainments. 

There has been and will be dispute as to the comparative efficiency 
of the various means which have been adopted for the encouragemenl 
of Art iu the United States. Institutions and individuals contend for 
the honor, and sonic deserve more of it than others; bu1 our office is 
not to settle such quarrels. There should, however, be no recrimina- 
tions between Artists and the friends (patrons is an ungenerous word) 
of Art. Each class is necessary to the other. It is a false (and, hap- 
pily, now nearly obsolete) policy, to force through the fundamental 
laws of supply and demand. Men will not consent to be scolded or 
ridiculed out of their money; and if they prefer bull-feasts, or gaudy 
furniture, or miserly accumulation to pictures or statuary, their money 
is their own, nor have we a right to take it out of their hands. \\ e 
may be pained to think that any are disappointed, when we could re- 
joice in the success of all the deserving; yet it must not be forgotten, 
that in the compensating distributions of Providence, genius, so libe- 
rally endowed with its own exquisite pleasures, can rarely expect the 
profits of trade. It is the duty of the artist to instruct us by his own 
beautiful and elevating works ; and, when we have been so educated 
in the high moral uses and noble gratifications to be derived from Art, 
we should be indeed ungrateful if the due of the master be withheld. 
The distribution of good specimens through the community, however 
accomplished, is the only sure method of spreading a desire for more, 
and the harvest will repay the seed manifold. In the language of 
II. ,1\ Writ, there ruusi be "a patient continuance in well-doing" by 
those who -look for glory and honor;" but "in due season they shall 
reap if they faint not." Nor have the profits of our artists been alto- 
gether contemptible; for, while we regrel that, owing principally to 
the smallnessof American fortunes, some of the besl have not broughl 



174 ART [H THE UNITED STATES. 

their value, it is also certain that works of art generally meet with 
fair prices; and there is no country where so large a proportion of its 
artists are living comfortably on their earnings, or where the gains ot 
talent in Art compares so favorably with those of equal talent in other 
pursuits of life, as this. We may rebuke and even lash the stupid indif- 
ference of those able, yet unwilling, to encourage liberally the efforts 
of genius ; but it degrades Art to set it whining after patronage, or to 
confound it with every self-inflated aspirant to the name of artist who 
has set up an easel, trims his beard a la Van Dyke, and in the very 
outset imagines himself a compeer of Eafiakle. Happily, the very 
great majority of our recognized artists are gentlemen in the true 
sense of the word, shunning the bad taste of eccentricity, and despising 
charlatanry; while they depend for success on their own generous de- 
votion to their elevated calling, and patient enthusiasm in the cultiva- 
tion of the gifts with which the good God lias endowed them. They 
will not lose their reward. 

The main features of human nature must be radically the same, 
however various the modifications of which they are capable ; and, 
though there have been peculiar reasons for the delay of Art among 
us, yet its history in this country has not been altogether singular. 
The rise and progress of Art are justly attributable to concurrent and 
successive natural causes working out, through the agency of man 
under the economy of a wise providence, the beneficent designs of 
God. Wealth and political stability have always preceded Art ; but 
where those have been gained, its progress has been proportionate, 
because it meets with that innate fondness for beauty and imitation of 
His divine works which is a universal attribute of the creature made 
after the image of his Creator. Taste and genius exist among every 
people, and, where depressing circumstances give place to more favor- 
able, they will appear and compel regard, whatever be the particular 



A.RT IN THE UNITED STATES. 1 7"> 

machinery bj which the end is gained. Even where influences seem 
mosl adverse, this tendency show- itself, though by feeble efforts; and 
the growth of arl maj be obscurely traced long before it bursts into 
sudden splendor. In what degree Greece derived her Arl from the 
carl_\ Eastern empires it is not easy to guess. Religion, especially 
under idolatrous forms, would naturally suggest lir-t the structure of 
imposing temples and representative images. Daedalus, if he be no1 
a mythical fiction, is the earliesl name in the annals of Grecian art, 
and lie was a sculptor, mosl probably of wood; but, though we read 
df a few ethers scattered along the interval, seven or eight centuries 
must ha\e elapsed between his date and thai of Phidias. Sonic de- 
scriptions in Homer indicate the existence of designing skill, of which 
there remained no adequate specimens as indubitable proof. The con- 
venient quarries of snowy Parian and sparkling Pentelican greatly 
encouraged the use of marble in building and statuary. Still it is 
certain that, until after the Persian war, art in Athens and all Greece 
was in its swaddling clothes ; but, through the magnificent foster-care 
of the elegant demagogue Pericles, in less than forty years Archi- 
tecture reached perfection, Sculpture had achieved by the hand of 
Phidias her most sublime triumphs, and Painting, in the frescoes of 
the Propylcea, had exhibited strong promise soon to lie fully devel- 
oped. We are astonished and instructed by the crowd of men emi- 
nent in these several departments, who nourished in the course of the 
half century of which Phidias was the Angelo: h tints, Calli- 
crates, and [itnesicles, architects ; Polycletus, Myron, Alcamenes, 

AYSLADAS (the younger), \l> ,ES, AtHENO tUS (the elder), and 

( !alamis, sculptors : Pan.i:m s, Polygnoti s, Apollodori s, Parrhasius, 
Zei sis, and Timanthes, painters. Thirty years after, Sculpture, which 
could not advance in grandeur beyond the Phidian Jupiter, was car- 
ried to its highest point of spiritual grace by Praxiteles; ami Paint- 



"|7<1 AKT IN THE UNITED STATES. 

ing, iu less than seventy, attained its ancient acme under Apelles and 
Pbotogenes. From this time Art, though largely practised and illus- 
trated occasionally by works of great merit, began to decline. 

The revival of Art in Europe is remarkable for similar facts. The 
first impulse came,, through ecclesiastical associations, from the East, 
and the monuments of classical genius were overlooked. Buschetto, 
(or Busciiettus) a Greek, built in the eleventh century the Cathedral 
of Pisa ; but it was not until the middle of the thirteenth, that we 
find the Sculptors Giovanni and Nicolo Pisani spreading their really 
beautiful works through Italy. Donatello and Ghibeeti, about the 
close of the fourteenth, left behind them achievements which have 
received admiration from all subsequent ages. Cimabue, in the latter 
half of the thirteenth century, began the emancipation of Painting 
from depraved Byzantine taste ; and his superior scholar Giotto pur- 
sued the good work with admirable courage. Brunellesctii (the 
architect) introduced clearer notions of perspective ; and Masaccio, 
making nature his guide, and discarding still more the restrictions 
which had hindered freedom and breadth, excelled in the spirit of his 
attitudes and the harmony of his colors. Thus, by slow and arduous 
steps, did Art ascend from its living tomb during more than two cen- 
turies until Perugino; but immediately after it shone forth with a 
lustre which has never since been equalled and can never be surpassed. 
About this time, under the admirable politics of Lorenzo the Mag- 
nificent, the balance of power in Italy, which had been so long dis- 
turbed by cruel and confused wars, became settled ; and the conse- 
quence was a general prosperity. Lorenzo employed large wealth 
during the long peace in the encouragement of learning and art. He 
collected many antique statues and the best pictures then to be found, 
within a palace, which he opened as an academy. The power of his 
liberal example, coextensive with that of his statesmanship, was felt 



\ i: T I N T II E 1X1 T E I) ST AT K s . 1 77 

at Milan, then under the Sforzas; at Venice, then in Its palmy da\ ; at 
Rome, then richest and proudest, and even at unhappy Naples. This 
allluent calm ushered in the greal period of Italian Art, which began 
with Da Vim 1 and closed with Rafaelle. Within less than fifty 
years, between 1 1 V < > and L520, flourished Da Vinci, Angelo, Raf- 
\ 1:1.1.1:, Tm \\, ('01:1:1 (.(.10, Del Sabto, and Giorgione; and, a few years 

later, (ill l.lo RoMANO, TINTORETTO, PaBMEGGIANO, and Pol.. CaEAVAG- 

gio. From this time, Italy being again convulsed, with the brillianl ex- 
ception of Baeoccio, Art continued to decline, until in another long 
peace, during the latter half of the sixteenth century, we discover a 
second constellation only inferior to the first; Paolo Veeohese, the 
Cabacci, Guldo, Domenichino, and Michael Angelo ( A 1: a \ A.GGIO. The 
only names of later date worthy to be given with those above, are 
Salvatob Rosa and Caelo Dolce, who were cotemporaneous about 
the middle of the seventeenth century. 

France hardly affords us an example in point. Her Art was im- 
mediately derived from Italy, and her best artists flourished there. 
We may observe, however, that the prosperous administration of 
Sully seems first to have given the energy which produced her best 
masters, and that in the forty years between 1582 and L622, were 
born YiNKT, the Poussins, Claude Loeeaine, Blanchabd. the Mig- 
NAEDS, I»i: l'»i:i x, Sakatin, and PuGET. 

Antweep, until the destruction of its harbor, the chief seat of 
commerce in the Low Countries, had attained the culminating point 
of its fortunes after the middle of the sixteenth century, and it- 

citizen- vrere proud of their wealth. As a consequence, Art, which, 
in Flanders, had been struggling upward from Van Eyck (who 
flourished about the beginning of the fifteenth century), Beeug- 
m:i., and Van Ort (born 1557), was elevated to a glorious 
height by the simultaneous excellences of Rubens, Van Dyke, Sny- 

23 



ITS ART IN THE UNITED STATES. 

dees, Tenters, and Jordaens, all of whom were born between 1576 
and 1600. 

The United Provinces, before 1610, bad shown themselves strong 
enough to maintain their freedom from the yoke of Spain, and estab- 
lished their admirable government. A similar triumph of Art fol- 
lowed ; and, accordingly, a multitude of artists appeared in Holland. 

HONTHORST (GlIERARDO DELLE NoTTl), CuTP, REMBRANDT, GERARD 

Douw, Both, the elder Van der Welde, Van Ostade, Wouvermans, 
Paul Potter, Backhuysen, Jan Steen, Ruysdael, Van der Welde 
the son, were all born between 1592 and 1636. 

William of Orange ascended the throne of Great Britain in 
1680. The ecclesiastical buildings of that island contain evidences of 
Art at an early period, and further down we read of Hilliard, 
Oi.iyei:, Jameson, Cooper, Wxatt, Grinding Gibbons, and others ; 
but they are ol tscure, and seldom spoken of compared to those of the 
foreigners, Holbein, Van Dyke, Lely, Knellee, and the two Van dee 
Veldes, who were liberally rewarded by royal and noble patrons. The 
establishment of civil and religious liberty, after the expulsion of the 
Stuarts, was followed by a general and increasing prosperity. During 
the reign of George I. and II. the power and wealth of Britain made 
large progress ; and at the accession of Geoeoe III. she had reached 
her pre-eminence in Europe. We are not, therefore, disappointed 
when we look for a correspondently nourishing condition of Art. 
Hogarth, born in 1608, was at the height of his fame in 1735, and 
continued to flourish until his death in 1762. Within the time of 
Hogarth, and in the half century between 1713 and 1764, were born 
Stuart, Wilson, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Barrett, Romney, Run- 

CIMAN, NoLLEKENS, BANKS, BACON, CoSWAY, BARRY, WyATT, NoRTH- 

cote, Flaxman, Blake, Opie, and Morland. West and Copley also 
were born in America, 1737-8, the former settling in England, 1763; 



A KT I N I'll E \ I I E D - I \ T ES. 170 

the latter, 1 7 7 -~> . This list, it will be perceived, comprises men emi- 
nent in every department. Under the liberal encouraeemenl of 
George III. the Royal Acadenij was established in L766, of which 
the lir-t presidenl was Reynolds, and the second our countryman 
West. Of Arl in Greal Britain subsequently, there is no need that 
we should speak. 

These memoranda show that we have great reason for encourage- 
meni with regard to the progress of Art in this country. It has begun 
to flourish as early in the historj of our nation as circumstances, ac- 
cording to all precedent, would allow. Nor should we think that its 
farther development must necessarily be slow. It is the characteristic 
of Art, when fairly awakened, to make progress by large strides; and 
we may well feel the shame of disappointment if this should not be 
the case in the United States. We are as a people successful in all 
the pursuits of industry, and as a nation secure in (lie justness and 

stability of our government. The day has therefore < •, when, 

with no neglect of matters vital to our general safety, we should culti- 
vate liberally those refined tastes which will add grace to our strength, 
and vindicate our national character from the imputation of an undue 
lust of gain. The new rich are ordinarily fond of display in costly 
appliances of luxurious life. They delight in a vulgar ostentation of 
mere expense before the eyes of the less fortunate, or in rivalling the 
tinsel splendor of each other. Intoxicated with sudden wealth, they 
are eager to lavish it, yet know not how to do so elegantly or credita- 
bly. This childish folly is rife among us. Many (comparatively) 
large fortunes are now in the hands of successful adventurers, who 
lack the education which teaches the better value of money. Hence 
we see on every hand a straining after effecl disproportionate to the 

scale of things. Houses, no1 bej 1 the size of comfortable mansions, 

receive an architectural decoration suitable onlj to large palaces; and 



180 ART IN THE UNITED STATES. 

the two or three narrow rooms on the principal floor are so crowded 
with glaring furniture as to drive the family, when not on exhibition, 
down into the obscure but more home-like basement. Festivals are 
given with an extravagant ambition, which can only be carried out by 
the aid of hired services and supernumerary servants. Robes, fit only 
for the evening drawing-room, sweep the dust of the pavement. Men, 
after having drudged all the day in office or counting-house, spend 
the night in aping the fashions of idle aristocrats, to begin again their 
necessary toil unrestored by sleep, while their wives and families live 
only to scatter what they have gathered with anxious industry. It is 
not surprising that pictures, or other works of Art, should be rare in 
their houses. They have no leisure even to read, much less to culti- 
vate taste ; their talk is of money, and they flatter their pride of purse 
by contemning all who, absorbed in liberal pursuits, have filled their 
heads rather than their pockets. The evil will not long be so ram- 
pant. It must grow less as the possession of riches ceases to be a 
novelty; and, especially, when the next generation, educated from 
infancy, perhaps enlightened by foreign travel in countries where let- 
ters and art are regarded as glory, comes upon the stage, a better sen- 
timent will prevail, and money be devoted to more honorable ends. 
Even now we are not without pleasing exceptions to the general fault. 
There are those, who, uncorrupted by the habits and successes of busi- 
ness, delight to relieve its fatigues, not by animal indulgences, but 
spiritual enjoyments; with whom the scholar, the man of science, and 
the artist, are honored guests ; from whose apartments books are not 
excluded as unfashionable lumber, and on whose walls a picture is not 
thought to be a deformity. These are the men who have encouraged 
the artist's zeal, and to whom, next to the artist and scarcely less, we 
owe a large improvement of the public feeling for Art and its already 
gratifying achievements. The Art of classical antiquity arose in a 



\ i: T IN THE UNITED STATES. 181 

democracy; to the merchant Medici it owed its revival in modern 
times; in the commercial states of the Netherlands appeared the onbj 
original school out of Ital\ ; and why should not Art flourish in our 
republic, where the lounging idler is a nuisance, and skilful occupation 
a title to respect '. 

In the history of Art we are glad to see refuted a common preju- 
dice that it demands peculiar condition- of climate, atmosphere, and 
natural scenerj ; or that it is the endowment of any particular people; 
or that it flourishes better under superstition than truth. It first ap- 
peared in the far, sultrj East, where at this late daj are now exhumed 
its stupendous remains. Tt shone forth under the clear skies of Greece 
long centuries alter its oblivion in Asia. When Art was splendid in 
Athens and Rhodes, ami Cos and Corinth, it had no native growth in 
Italy. The pictures and the statues with which Rome was crowded, 
were the work of Grecian hands. Puny has barely rescued from for- 
getfulness the names of two or three countrymen of his, who imitated 
the Grecian school, bul they scarcely deserved the record. Again, 
when Art had been irreparably lost to Greece for well nigh a thousand 
years, Italy became the theatre of its highesl glory, and claimed the 
prerogative of teaching the world. Even there was there a distinc- 
tion. If study of antique forms in the clear, dry atmosphere of Home, 
gave to her school its unequalled perception of form, the moistened 
air of Venice enabled her artists to study the coloring of nature,* 



- 



*About tli<- year 1824 the writer had the pleasure of a conversation with Gilbert 
Sti aim, .'Hi. I asked him why it was that the Venetian school so tar excelled the Roman in 
coloring. II.' ma. I.' no reply, but for a few moments carelessly burnished with his handker 
chief a plain gold ring on his finger — when turning it t.. the sunlight he sharply said : " < 'an 
\..u see color in thai ring, sir?" "Very indistinctly." He then breathed u] it, and show- 
ing ii again, asked: " Do you see color now, sir ?" A happy illustration, characteristic of the 
i-inin.'iii artist. 



182 ART IN THE UNITED STATES. 

while those of Lombard y, holding a middle place, united grace and 
beauty. Almost alone in Spain we see the star-like lustre of the ex- 
quisite Mueillo. Then, leaping, as it were, over the space between, 
Art found another home among the fogs and marshes of the Low 
Countries, where she exhibited herself in new and striking combina- 
tions. Thence the transition to our ancestral Britain was easy; and 
now, go where we will in the civilized world, we find the living artist. 
Germany, notwithstanding the early inspiration of Albert Durek, is 
only of late succeeding in the establishment of a school of her own. 
Batch of Berlin, and Schwanthaler of Munich, have won most 
enviable fame in the grainiest styles of sculpture; nor should it be 
forgotten, that the greatest sculptor of the age, the greatest since 
Angelo, the Scandinavian Thorwaldsen, emerged from the Ultima 
I'lmh of the ancients. In our land we have every variety of climate 
and atmosphere, with a commingling of all the cultivated races; 
genius for each department of skill has appeared among us. Is it then 
presumption to hope that, as empire marches westward, Art may here 
attain the lustre reserved for her destined acquisition of universal 
-way \ 

Too much stress has been laid upon the encouragement of Art by 
the classical mythology of the ancient world, and the legendary tra- 
ditions, that cling like parasitic masses about a better creed. These 
may be favorable, but are not necessary to Art. The ideal of power, 
beauty, heroic endurance, or moral emotion, is the creature of the 
artist's soul. He embodies it in form, and but calls that form by a 
popular name. The anthropinal character of their gods enabled the 
ancients to approach more nearly their idea of divinity; but no genius 
has adequately translated into human shape the God of our faith, 
"whom no man hath seen or can see." Overpowered as we are by 
other conceptions of Angelo, we are disappointed, if not pained, by 



A LIT l\ THE UNITED ST A l l - 1 83 

his figures of the Almighty; and our hope is unsatisfied when we look 
upon the canvas of Caklo Dolce, or even Rafaelle, for the l>i\init\ 
whom we adore in the Man Christ Jesus. The Jupiter of the Elian 
Olympia appears again, though with more noble attributes, in the 
Jehovah of the Cistine; and the precipitation of the wicked in the 
tremendous Last Judgment might, with a proper change of the acces- 
sories, present to the mind of a pagan Greek an overthrow of con- 
spiring Titans. An adequate personification of Wisdom could uot tail 
of being a reminiscence of Minerva, though without helmel or aegis. 
Benjamin West saw the symmetrical strength and graceful energy of 
a young Mohawk warrior in the Pythian Archer of the Vatican. 
Were the Satan of Milton wrought in marble, there would be on his 
thunder-scarred browthe defiant despair of Prometheus bound. Venus, 
who once in Cyprus struggled with Adonis, has given her cestus to 
the wife of Potiphar, -coined, nevertheless, like herself; or, converted 
from liei' sins, weeps with Magdalen in the desert, who, the painters 
seem unanimously to think, never regained her modesty with her 
penitence. In the martyr, we discover constancy under suffering, 
sweetened by forgiving patience and sublimated by celestial hope. 
The virtues and. the vices, the appetites ami the passions of human 
nature, are peculiar to no age. As Art is spiritualized, it becomes 

independent of mere outer accidents ; the true type, however exoteri- 
cally given, is ever the same, and the true artist will ever find it in his 
soul, though to express it, he may use prevailing associations, as the 
philosopher teaches in the tongue of his disciples. A like strain of 

remark is applicable to drapery, for it is ever a ] r artifice because 

untruthful (which should be synonymous with unartistic) to clothe an 
individual of one period in the fashion of another. Washington in a 
toga is an affront to our common sense; and he who cannol give us 
the foremosl man of modern times in his own garb, should confess a 



184 ART IN THE UNITED STATES. 

genius unequal to the portraiture. An artist is not obliged to coj)y all 
the fantastic caprices of fashion, but his invention is very weak if, like 
a country tailor, he can work only after obsolete patterns. He has 
the right of contrivance in costume, but imagination must be ruled by 
propriety. So many are the beauties of Rafaelle, that we are apt to 
overlook the drapery of his figures, not its color or application to the 
form, but its naturalness, yet it greatly assists the pure harmony 
which is the superlative charm of his works ; while Guido, charming 
as he is, and easy in the disposition of the drapery he chooses, has 
decorated his archangel like a celestial Alcibiades. Our own Hun- 
tington, who has more of Eafaelle's elevated serenity than any 
other recent artist, shows, especially in his allegorical pictures, how 
superior a true artist is to pedantic affectation, when dressing his 
characters. 

No artists of modern times have had such opportunities for origi- 
nality, or such untrodden walks opened before them, as ours ; and it 
should be their honorable aim, so far as is consistent with the peculiar 
tendency of their genius, to illustrate the country of their birth. 
Polygnotus, after he had depicted on the walls of the Pcecilo the 
victories of his compatriots, lived by a vote of the Amphictyonic Coun- 
cil as the guest of all Greece ; and an American, who should success- 
fully follow his example, would not remain unhonored. Every petty 
town of Europe has in its public walks statues of those who have been 
feared or loved. How few are the memorials of our mighty dead ! 
It is vain to say that they live in our hearts, when we are too 
niggard to prove by outward sign the sentiment we profess. Sad 
would it be, if there were preserved no likeness of our country's 
Father, and we could not gaze with filial veneration upon that calm 
majesty of countenance and form which is the visible presentment of 
his grave and good soul ! Yet how many who have contributed to 



AKT IN THE UNITED STATES. Is.") 

our glorious bistory, have been permitted to die, their lineaments for- 
gotten before they have crumbled to dusl ! Had they been as faith- 
ful servants of a despotism, they would have stood in marble and 
bronze upon proudly inscribed pedestals. Should freemen be less 
grateful than tyrant-; Ii is \>\ such uses thai the moral power of Arl 
is besl exerted on the popular mind; and we can well pardon the 
awkward multitude of legs in Trumbull's picture, when we know thai 
if has carried to every dwelling of our people a perpetuation of the 
sublime assembly, which declared our national independence. 

What inexhaustible studies are afforded by the aborigines of 
Northern America, now passing away with noiseless tread that leaves 
no trail, which the plough will not soon obliterate ! They had no 
art, and a more than Cimmerian darkness hides their story before the 
white man came; its fatal catastrophe cannot long be delayed, yet let 
them not be as though they had never been! We owe this dutj to 
them and to the inquirers of future centuries. Their physical peculi- 
arities, their costume, their habits at rest, in war, or in the chase; 
their moral characteristics, and not a few scene- of their contesl with 
civilization, supply to both chisel and pencil subject- at once novel 
ami various for every style of delineation. We are proud of our 
sculptors, who can achieve no mean distinction in the walk beaten by 
so many mighty predecessors — of GrREENOUGH, now by no mean- dulj 
appreciated; of Powers (would that the chain were shivered from the 
beautiful limbs of his slave ! it i- a paltry method of helping out 
the story, mos1 unworthy of hi- genius); and of Crawford, whose 
Orpheus i- like a dream of classic poetry; but we mu-t congratulate 
I'.uowx upon his having received an inspiration truly American, when 
he chose the Indian for the model of some recent works. lie has 
entered an untried and va-t field, which hi- severe education in the 
antique well lit- him to explore: and it is earnestly to lie hoped that 

•_'l 



186 ART IN THE UNITED STATES. 

no withholding of proper sympathy may compel his abandonment of 
the best chance for high and permanent distinction he conld expect 
or desire. 

When we consider the distinctive scenery of our country, the 
undulating outline of our mountains, the majestic flow of our 
rivers, the thundering cataract and the innumerable cascades, the 
placid lakes embosomed among the hills, and their multitudinous 
islands, the contrasts of nature in her wildest grace and most rugged 
grandeur with the tranquil charms of progressive cultivation, and the 
gorgeous magnificence of our autumnal forests, the paradise of color, 
we are not surprised that Landscape painting should have man}- and 
enthusiastic votaries. Here also there is large scope, and, indeed, 
a necessity for originality. The fundamental canons of Art must re- 
main the same, but the painter of American scenery will find himself 
wanting, however he may study foreign artists, unless he closely and 
faithfully observe nature as it is displayed here. Our skies, our atmos- 
phere, the shapes of our trees and the hues of their foliage, our very 
rocks are so peculiar, that to an eye which has never looked upon the 
reality, a representation of them may seem false, or at least exagger- 
ated. The accomplished critic, Mrs. Jamteson, has said, that when she 
first saw a Claude in England, she thought, " How beautiful !" but 
when she saw the effects of that magic pencil in Italy, she exclaimed, 
" How like !" The same thing might occur with a true picture of an 
American landscape. Here are many various effects not met with 
elsewhere, and as delightful as they are peculiar. For these and other 
obvious reasons, next to the painter of portraits who ministers to the 
proudest affections of our hearts, the painter of landscapes has met 
with most general favor; and a volume like this in the reader's hand, 
must be a most welcome contribution to the public taste. We have 
not a few artists in this line who deserve mention, and some high 



\kt in the united states. l&*l 

praise, it' an award of meril was the presumptuous purpose of this 
essaj ; bu1 no one will forbid a grateful tribute to the memory of him, 
who has been to America what Giorgione was to Italy, Ri fsdael to 
Holland, and Gainsborough to England, Thomas Cole, the head of the 
American school of Landscape painting. The works which he lias left 
behind him arc his besl eulogy. He revelled amidst the splendors of the 
frost-touched woodsalmost to intoxication. As we loot upon the scenes 
he represents we are oftentimes oppressed by the dazzling richness of 
the hues, while we confess the fidelity of the painter, and thank him 
for his tribute to the surpassing beauties, which the hand of nature 

ha- scattered so lavishly and on SO grand a scale o\ er the mountains 
and \ alleys of our native land. Even after such enjoyment, it is most 
pleasing, if we may turn to a picture of the ever-faithful and ever- 
judicious Durand, who never applies his pencil without impressing 
upon the canvas pure and delicious traces of a calm, chastened spirit; 
or to the charming summer fields of Doughtt, as they swim in silvery 
brightness before our fortunate eyes. These gentlemen our younger 
artists have done well to emulate, and some have studied well ; while 
they show, not by servile imitation, but by following ever their own 
peculiar tendencies under the teaching of happy example. Among 
those, who are now daily presenting us with creditable landscapes, it, 
is perhaps invidious to make particular mention of any; yet it would 
lie unjusl not to name Cm ECB and Kensett, both of whom are rapidly 
gaining a high degree of acknowledged distinction, which must yield 
them a mosl satisfactory return for their well-directed enthusiasm. 

Early youth is naturally imitative, and, for that reason, timid. 
Our Art lias not passed the period of it- youth, nor acquired suf- 
ficient boldness and self-reliance. With more maturity we may ex- 
pect more originality. It were strange indeed if, with so many new 
lessons from Nature, the great teacher, our artists should content 
themselves with doing only what has keen done before. 



L88 ART IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The history of American Art will one day he a matter of curious 
interest. Specimens of some, especially among our earlier artists, are 
already hecoming rare. A permanent collection of pieces, from each 
hand, would be very instructive, and a happy monument. It could 
now be made without great difficulty, and continued easily. The cost 
would not be very great, and its exhibition might defray, at least, the 
current expenses. An Historical Gallery of National Art ! The sug- 
gestion is not undeserving of thought. 



THE END. 



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